Gamma tocopherol methyltransferase coding sequence from Brassica and uses thereof

ABSTRACT

The present invention relates to genes associated with the tocopherol biosynthesis pathway. More particularly, the present invention provides and includes nucleic acid molecules, proteins, and antibodies associated with genes that encode polypeptides that have methyltransferase activity. The present invention also provides methods for utilizing such agents, for example in gene isolation, gene analysis and the production of transgenic plants. Moreover, the present invention includes transgenic plants modified to express the aforementioned polypeptides. In addition, the present invention includes methods for the production of products from the tocopherol biosynthesis pathway.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a divisional application of application Ser. No.10/219,810, filed Aug. 16, 2002, which is issued as U.S. Pat. No.7,244,877 and claims the benefit of and priority to U.S. provisionalapplication No. 60/312,758, filed Aug. 17, 2001, the entire disclosuresof which are each specifically herein incorporated by reference in itsentirety.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention is in the field of plant genetics andbiochemistry. More specifically, the invention relates to genesassociated with the tocopherol biosynthesis pathway, namely thoseencoding methyltransferase activity, and uses of such genes.

BACKGROUND

Tocopherols are an important component of mammalian diets.Epidemiological evidence indicates that tocopherol supplementation canresult in decreased risk for cardiovascular disease and cancer, can aidin immune function, and is associated with prevention or retardation ofa number of degenerative disease processes in humans (Traber and Sies,Annu. Rev. Nutr. 16:321-347 (1996)). Tocopherol functions, in part, bystabilizing the lipid bilayer of biological membranes (Skrypin andKagan, Biochim. Biophys. Acta 815:209 (1995); Kagan, N.Y. Acad. Sci. p121, (1989); Gomez-Fernandez et al., Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. p 109 (1989)),reducing polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) free radicals generated bylipid oxidation (Fukuzawa et al., Lipids 17: 511-513 (1982)), andscavenging oxygen free radicals, lipid peroxy radicals and singletoxygen species (Diplock et al. Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. 570: 72 (1989);Fryer, Plant Cell Environ. 15(4):381-392 (1992)).

α-Tocopherol, often referred to as vitamin E, belongs to a class oflipid-soluble antioxidants that includes α, β, γ, and δ-tocopherols andα, β, γ, and δ-tocotrienols. Although α, β, γ, and δ-tocopherols and α,β, γ, and δ-tocotrienols are sometimes referred to collectively as“vitamin E”, vitamin E is more appropriately defined chemically asα-tocopherol. α-Tocopherol is significant for human health, in partbecause it is readily absorbed and retained by the body, and thereforehas a higher degree of bioactivity than other tocopherol species (Traberand Sies, Annu. Rev. Nutr. 16:321-347 (1996)). However, othertocopherols such as β, γ, and δ-tocopherols, also have significanthealth and nutritional benefits.

Tocopherols are primarily synthesized only by plants and certain otherphotosynthetic organisms, including cyanobacteria. As a result,mammalian dietary tocopherols are obtained almost exclusively from thesesources. Plant tissues vary considerably in total tocopherol content andtocopherol composition, with α-tocopherol the predominant tocopherolspecies found in green, photosynthetic plant tissues. Leaf tissue cancontain from 10-50 μg of total tocopherols per gram fresh weight, butmost of the world's major staple crops (e.g., rice, corn, wheat, potato)produce low to extremely low levels of total tocopherols, of which onlya small percentage is α-tocopherol (Hess, Vitamin E, α-tocopherol, InAntioxidants in Higher Plants, R. Alscher and J. Hess, Eds., CRC Press,Boca Raton. pp. 111-134 (1993)). Oil seed crops generally contain muchhigher levels of total tocopherols, but α-tocopherol is present only asa minor component in most oilseeds (Taylor and Barnes, Chem. Ind.,October:722-726 (1981)).

The recommended daily dietary intake of 15-30 mg of vitamin E is quitedifficult to achieve from the average American diet. For example, itwould take over 750 grams of spinach leaves in which α-tocopherolcomprises 60% of total tocopherols, or 200-400 grams of soybean oil tosatisfy this recommended daily vitamin E intake. While it is possible toaugment the diet with supplements, most of these supplements containprimarily synthetic vitamin E, having eight stereoisomers, whereasnatural vitamin E is predominantly composed of only a single isomer.Furthermore, supplements tend to be relatively expensive, and thegeneral population is disinclined to take vitamin supplements on aregular basis. Therefore, there is a need in the art for compositionsand methods that either increase the total tocopherol production orincrease the relative percentage of α-tocopherol produced by plants.

In addition to the health benefits of tocopherols, increasedα-tocopherol levels in crops have been associated with enhancedstability and extended shelf life of plant products (Peterson,Cereal-Chem. 72(1):21-24 (1995); Ball, Fat-soluble vitamin assays infood analysis. A comprehensive review, London, Elsevier SciencePublishers Ltd. (1988)). Further, tocopherol supplementation of swine,beef, and poultry feeds has been shown to significantly increase meatquality and extend the shelf life of post-processed meat products byretarding post-processing lipid oxidation, which contributes to theundesirable flavor components (Sante and Lacourt, J. Sci. Food Agric.65(4):503-507 (1994); Buckley et al., J. of Animal Science 73:3122-3130(1995)).

Tocopherol Biosynthesis

The plastids of higher plants exhibit interconnected biochemicalpathways leading to secondary metabolites including tocopherols. Thetocopherol biosynthetic pathway in higher plants involves condensationof homogentisic acid and phytylpyrophosphate to form 2-methyl-6phytylplastoquinol (Fiedler et al., Planta 155: 511-515 (1982); Soll etal., Arch. Biochem. Biophys. 204: 544-550 (1980); Marshall et al.,Phytochem. 24: 1705-1711 (1985)). This plant tocopherol pathway can bedivided into four parts: 1) synthesis of homogentisic acid, whichcontributes to the aromatic ring of tocopherol; 2) synthesis ofphytylpyrophosphate, which contributes to the side chain of tocopherol;3) joining of HGA and phytylpyrophosphate via a prenyltransferasefollowed by a subsequent cyclization; 4) and S-adenosyl methioninedependent methylation of an aromatic ring, which affects the relativeabundance of each of the tocopherol species.

Synthesis of Homogentisic Acid

Homogentisic acid is the common precursor to both tocopherols andplastoquinones. In at least some bacteria the synthesis of homogentisicacid is reported to occur via the conversion of chorismate to prephenateand then to p-hydroxyphenylpyruvate via a bifunctional prephenatedehydrogenase. Examples of bifunctional bacterial prephenatedehydrogenase enzymes include the proteins encoded by the tyrA genes ofErwinia herbicola and Escherichia coli. The tyrA gene product catalyzesthe production of prephenate from chorismate, as well as the subsequentdehydrogenation of prephenate to form p-hydroxyphenylpyruvate (p-HPP),the immediate precursor to homogentisic acid. p-HPP is then converted tohomogentisic acid by hydroxyphenylpyruvate dioxygenase (HPPD). Incontrast, plants are believed to lack prephenate dehydrogenase activity,and it is generally believed that the synthesis of homogentisic acidfrom chorismate occurs via the synthesis and conversion of theintermediate arogenate. Since pathways involved in homogentisic acidsynthesis are also responsible for tyrosine formation, any alterationsin these pathways can also result in the alteration in tyrosinesynthesis and the synthesis of other aromatic amino acids.

Synthesis of Phytylpyrophosphate

Tocopherols are a member of the class of compounds referred to as theisoprenoids. Other isoprenoids include carotenoids, gibberellins,terpenes, chlorophyll and abscisic acid. A central intermediate in theproduction of isoprenoids is isopentenyl diphosphate (IPP). Cytoplasmicand plastid-based pathways to generate IPP have been reported. Thecytoplasmic based pathway involves the enzymes acetoacetyl CoA thiolase,HMGCoA synthase, HMGCoA reductase, mevalonate kinase, phosphomevalonatekinase, and mevalonate pyrophosphate decarboxylase.

Recently, evidence for the existence of an alternative, plastid based,isoprenoid biosynthetic pathway emerged from studies in the researchgroups of Rohmer and Arigoni (Eisenreich et al., Chem. Bio., 5:R221-R233(1998); Rohmer, Prog. Drug. Res., 50:135-154 (1998); Rohmer,Comprehensive Natural Products Chemistry, Vol. 2, pp. 45-68, Barton andNakanishi (eds.), Pergamon Press, Oxford, England (1999)), who foundthat the isotope labeling patterns observed in studies on certaineubacterial and plant terpenoids could not be explained in terms of themevalonate pathway. Arigoni and coworkers subsequently showed that1-deoxyxylulose, or a derivative thereof, serves as an intermediate ofthe novel pathway, now referred to as the MEP pathway (Rohmer et al.,Biochem. J., 295:517-524 (1993); Schwarz, Ph.D. thesis, EidgenössicheTechnische Hochschule, Zurich, Switzerland (1994)). Recent studiesshowed the formation of 1-deoxyxylulose 5-phosphate (Broers, Ph.D.thesis (Eidgenössiche Technische Hochschule, Zurich, Switzerland)(1994)) from one molecule each of glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate (Rohmer,Comprehensive Natural Products Chemistry, Vol. 2, pp. 45-68, Barton andNakanishi, eds., Pergamon Press, Oxford, England (1999)) and pyruvate(Eisenreich et al., Chem. Biol., 5:R223-R233 (1998); Schwarz supra;Rohmer et al., J. Am. Chem. Soc., 118:2564-2566 (1996); and Sprenger etal., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 94:12857-12862 (1997)) by an enzymeencoded by the dxs gene (Lois et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA,95:2105-2110 (1997); and Lange et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA,95:2100-2104 (1998)). 1-Deoxyxylulose 5-phosphate can be furtherconverted into 2-C-methylerythritol 4-phosphate (Arigoni et al., Proc.Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 94:10600-10605 (1997)) by a reductoisomeraseencoded by the dxr gene (Bouvier et al., Plant Physiol, 117:1421-1431(1998); and Rohdich et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 96:11758-11763(1999)).

Reported genes in the MEP pathway also include ygbP, which catalyzes theconversion of 2-C-methylerythritol 4-phosphate into its respectivecytidyl pyrophosphate derivative and ygbB, which catalyzes theconversion of 4-phosphocytidyl-2C-methyl-D-erythritol into2C-methyl-D-erythritol, 3,4-cyclophosphate. These genes are tightlylinked on the E. coli genome (Herz et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci.U.S.A., 97(6):2485-2490 (2000)).

Once IPP is formed by the MEP pathway, it is converted to GGDP by GGDPsynthase, and then to phytylpyrophosphate, which is the centralconstituent of the tocopherol side chain.

Combination and Cyclization

Homogentisic acid is combined with either phytyl-pyrophosphate orsolanylpyrophosphate by phytyl/prenyl transferase forming2-methyl-6-phytyl plastoquinol or 2-methyl-6-solanyl plastoquinol,respectively. 2-methyl-6-solanyl plastoquinol is a pre-cursor to thebiosynthesis of plastoquinones, while 2-methyl-6-phytyl plastoquinol isultimately converted to tocopherol.

Methylation of the Aromatic Ring

The major structural difference between each of the tocopherol subtypesis the position of the methyl groups around the phenyl ring. Both2-methyl-6-phytyl plastoquinol and 2-methyl-6-solanyl plastoquinol serveas substrates for2-methyl-6-phytylplastoquinol/2-methyl-6-solanylplastoquinol-9methyltransferase (Methyl Transferase 1; MT1), which catalyzes theformation of plastoquinol-9 and γ-tocopherol respectively, bymethylation of the 7 position. Subsequent methylation at the 5 positionof γ-tocopherol by γ-tocopherol methyl-transferase (GMT) generates thebiologically active α-tocopherol. Additional potential MT1 substratesinclude 2-methyl-5-phytylplastoquinol and 2-methyl-3-phytylplastoquinol.Additional potential substrates for GMT include δ-tocopherol and γ- andδ-tocotrienol.

There is a need in the art for nucleic acid molecules encoding enzymesinvolved in tocopherol biosynthesis, as well as related enzymes andantibodies for the enhancement or alteration of tocopherol production inplants. There is a further need for transgenic organisms expressingthose nucleic acid molecules involved in tocopherol biosynthesis, whichare capable of nutritionally enhancing food and feed sources.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention includes and provides a substantially purifiednucleic acid molecule comprising a nucleic acid sequence selected fromthe group consisting of SEQ ID NOs: 2-17, 50, and 85.

The present invention includes and provides a substantially purifiednucleic acid molecule comprising a nucleic acid sequence that encodes anamino acid sequence selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NO:19-31 and 33-38.

The present invention includes and provides a substantially purifiednucleic acid molecule comprising as operably linked components: (A) apromoter region which functions in a plant cell to cause the productionof an mRNA molecule; (B) a heterologous nucleic acid molecule encoding apolypeptide molecule comprising a sequence selected from the groupconsisting of SEQ ID NOs: 19-31, 33-41.

The present invention includes and provides a substantially purifiedprotein comprising an amino acid sequence selected from the groupconsisting of SEQ ID NOs: 19-31, and 33-38.

The present invention includes and provides an antibody capable ofspecifically binding a substantially purified protein comprising anamino acid sequence selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NOs:19-31, and 33-38.

The present invention includes and provides a transformed plant havingan exogenous nucleic acid molecule that encodes a polypeptide moleculecomprising a sequence selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NOs:19-31, and 33-41.

The present invention includes and provides a transformed plant havingan exogenous nucleic acid molecule that encodes a polypeptide moleculecomprising a sequence selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NOs:46-49.

The present invention includes and provides a method for reducingexpression of MT1 or GMT in a plant comprising: (A) transforming a plantwith a nucleic acid molecule, said nucleic acid molecule having anexogenous promoter region which functions in plant cells to cause theproduction of a mRNA molecule, wherein said exogenous promoter region islinked to a transcribed nucleic acid molecule having a transcribedstrand and a non-transcribed strand, wherein said transcribed strand iscomplementary to a nucleic acid molecule comprising a nucleic acidsequence selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NOs: 2-17, 50, and85; and wherein said transcribed nucleic acid molecule is linked to a 3′non-translated sequence that functions in the plant cells to causetermination of transcription and addition of polyadenylatedribonucleotides to a 3′ end of the mRNA sequence; and (B) growing saidtransformed plant.

The present invention includes and provides a transformed plantcomprising a nucleic acid molecule comprising an exogenous promoterregion which functions in plant cells to cause the production of a mRNAmolecule, wherein the exogenous promoter region is linked to atranscribed nucleic acid molecule having a transcribed strand and anon-transcribed strand, wherein the transcribed strand is complementaryto a nucleic acid molecule comprising a nucleic acid sequence selectedfrom the group consisting of SEQ ID NOs: 2-17, 50, 85, and wherein thetranscribed nucleic acid molecule is linked to a 3′ non-translatedsequence that functions in the plant cells to cause termination oftranscription and addition of polyadenylated ribonucleotides to a 3′ endof the mRNA sequence; wherein, the expression of MT1, GMT or both isreduced relative to a plant with a similar genetic background butlacking the exogenous nucleic acid molecule.

The present invention includes and provides method for increasing theγ-tocopherol content in a plant comprising: (A) transforming a plantwith a nucleic acid molecule, the nucleic acid molecule comprising anexogenous promoter region which functions in plant cells to cause theproduction of a mRNA molecule, wherein the exogenous promoter region islinked to a transcribed nucleic acid molecule comprising a transcribedstrand and a non-transcribed strand, wherein the transcribed strand iscomplementary to a nucleic acid molecule comprising a nucleic acidsequence selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NOs: 2-17, 50, and85; and wherein the transcribed nucleic acid molecule is linked to a 3′non-translated sequence that functions in the plant cells to causetermination of transcription and addition of polyadenylatedribonucleotides to a 3′ end of the mRNA sequence; and (C) growing thetransformed plant.

The current invention further includes and provides a transformed plantcomprising: (A) a first nucleic acid molecule comprising an exogenouspromoter region which functions in plant cells to cause the productionof a mRNA molecule, wherein the exogenous promoter region is linked to atranscribed nucleic acid molecule having a transcribed strand and anon-transcribed strand, wherein the transcribed strand is complementaryto a nucleic acid molecule comprising a nucleic acid sequence selectedfrom the group consisting of SEQ ID NOs: 2-17, 50, and 85, and whereinthe transcribed nucleic acid molecule is linked to a 3′ non-translatedsequence that functions in the plant cells to cause termination oftranscription and addition of polyadenylated ribonucleotides to a 3′ endof the mRNA sequence; and (B) a second nucleic acid molecule comprisingan exogenous promoter region which functions in plant cells to cause theproduction of a mRNA molecule, wherein the exogenous promoter region islinked to a nucleic acid molecule comprising a sequence selected fromthe group consisting of SEQ ID NOs: 42-45, wherein the γ-tocopherolcontent of the transformed plant is increased relative to a plant with asimilar genetic background but lacking the exogenous nucleic acidmolecule.

The present invention includes and provides a method of producing aplant having a seed with an increased γ-tocopherol level comprising: (A)transforming the plant with a nucleic acid molecule, wherein the nucleicacid molecule comprises a sequence encoding a polypeptide moleculecomprising a sequence selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NOs:19-31, 33-38, and 39-41; and (B) growing the transformed plant.

The present invention includes and provides a method of producing aplant having a seed with an increased γ-tocopherol level comprising: (A)transforming the plant with a nucleic acid molecule, wherein the nucleicacid molecule comprises a nucleic acid sequence that encodes apolypeptide molecule comprising a sequence selected from the groupconsisting of SEQ ID NOs: 46-49; and (B) growing the transformed plant.

The present invention includes and provides a method of accumulatingα-tocopherol in a seed comprising: (A) growing a plant with aheterologous nucleic acid molecule, wherein the heterologous nucleicacid molecule comprises a sequence encoding a polypeptide moleculecomprising an amino acid sequence selected from the group consisting ofSEQ ID NOs: 19-31, 33-38, and 39-41; and (B) isolating said seed fromsaid plant with a heterologous nucleic acid molecule.

The present invention includes and provides a method of accumulatingγ-tocopherol in a seed comprising: (A) growing a plant with aheterologous nucleic acid molecule, wherein the heterologous nucleicacid molecule comprises a sequence encoding a polypeptide moleculecomprising an amino acid sequence selected from the group consisting ofSEQ ID NOs: 46-49; and (B) isolating said seed from said plant with aheterologous nucleic acid molecule.

The present invention includes and provides a seed derived from atransformed plant having an exogenous nucleic acid molecule comprising anucleic acid sequence encoding an polypeptide molecule comprising asequence selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NOs: 19-31, 33-38,and 39-41, wherein the seed has an increased α-tocopherol level relativeto seeds from a plant having a similar genetic background but lackingthe exogenous nucleic acid molecule.

The present invention includes and provides an oil derived from a seedof a transformed plant, wherein the transformed plant contains anexogenous nucleic acid molecule comprising a nucleic acid sequenceencoding a polypeptide molecule comprising a sequence selected from thegroup consisting of SEQ ID NOs: 19-31, 33-38, and 39-41.

The present invention includes and provides feedstock comprising atransformed plant or part thereof, wherein the transformed plant has anexogenous nucleic acid molecule that comprises a nucleic acid sequenceencoding a polypeptide molecule comprising a sequence selected from thegroup consisting of SEQ ID NO s: 19-31, 33-38, and 39-41.

The present invention includes and provides a meal comprising plantmaterial manufactured from a transformed plant, wherein the transformedplant has an exogenous nucleic acid molecule that comprises a nucleicacid sequence encoding a polypeptide molecule comprising a sequenceselected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NOs: 19-31, 33-38, and39-41.

The present invention includes and provides a seed derived from atransformed plant having an exogenous nucleic acid molecule comprising asequence encoding a polypeptide molecule comprising a sequence selectedfrom the group consisting of SEQ ID NOs: 46-49, wherein the seed has anincreased tocopherol level relative to seeds from a plant having asimilar genetic background but lacking the exogenous nucleic acidmolecule.

The present invention includes and provides oil derived from a seed of atransformed plant, wherein the transformed plant contains an exogenousnucleic acid molecule comprising a nucleic acid sequence encoding apolypeptide molecule comprising a sequence selected from the groupconsisting of SEQ ID NOs: 46-49.

The present invention also includes and provides feedstock comprising atransformed plant or part thereof, wherein the transformed plant has anexogenous nucleic acid molecule that comprises a nucleic acid sequenceencoding a polypeptide molecule comprising a sequence selected from thegroup consisting of SEQ ID NOs: 46-49.

The present invention also includes and provides meal comprising plantmaterial manufactured from a transformed plant, wherein the transformedplant has an exogenous nucleic acid molecule that comprises a nucleicacid sequence encoding a polypeptide molecule comprising a sequenceselected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NO: 46-49.

The present invention also includes and provides a host cell comprisinga nucleic acid molecule comprising a nucleic acid sequence selected fromthe group consisting of SEQ ID NOs: 2-17, 42-45 and complements thereof.

The present invention also includes and provides an introduced firstnucleic acid molecule that encodes a polypeptide molecule comprising anamino acid sequence selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NOs:19-31, 33-38, and 39-41, and an introduced second nucleic acid moleculeencoding an enzyme selected from the group consisting of tyrA, slr1736,ATPT2, dxs, dxr, GGPPS, HPPD, GMT, MT1, tMT2, AANT1, slr1737, and anantisense construct for homogentisic acid dioxygenase.

The present invention also includes and provides a transformed plantcomprising an introduced first nucleic acid molecule that encodes apolypeptide molecule comprising an amino acid sequence selected from thegroup consisting of SEQ ID NOs: 46-49, and an introduced second nucleicacid molecule encoding an enzyme selected from the group consisting oftyrA, slr1736, ATPT2, dxs, dxr, GGPPS, HPPD, GMT, MT1, tMT2, AANT1,slr1737, and an antisense construct for homogentisic acid dioxygenase.

The present invention also includes and provides a plant comprising anintroduced nucleic acid molecule comprising a nucleic acid sequenceselected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NOs: 42-45, wherein saidtransformed plant produces a seed having increased total tocopherolrelative to seed of a plant with a similar genetic background butlacking said introduced nucleic acid molecule.

The present invention also includes and provides a plant comprising anintroduced nucleic acid molecule comprising a nucleic acid sequenceselected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NOs: 2-17, 50, 85, whereinsaid transformed plant produces a seed having increased total tocopherolrelative to seed of a plant with a similar genetic background butlacking said introduced nucleic acid molecule.

The present invention also includes and provides a plant comprising afirst introduced nucleic acid molecule comprising a nucleic acidsequence selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NOs: 2-17, 50, and85 and a second introduced nucleic acid molecule comprising a nucleicacid sequence selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NOs: 42-45,wherein said transformed plant produces a seed having increased totaltocopherol relative to seed of a plant with a similar genetic backgroundbut lacking both said introduced first nucleic acid molecule and saidintroduced second nucleic acid molecule.

DESCRIPTION OF THE NUCLEIC AND AMINO ACID SEQUENCES

SEQ ID NO: 1 sets forth a nucleic acid sequence of a DNA molecule thatencodes an Arabidopsis thaliana gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 2 sets forth a nucleic acid sequence of a DNA molecule thatencodes an Arabidopsis thaliana, Columbia ecotype, gamma-tocopherolmethyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 3 sets forth a nucleic acid sequence of a DNA molecule thatencodes an Oryza sativa gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 4 sets forth a nucleic acid sequence of a DNA molecule thatencodes a Gossypium hirsutum gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 5 sets forth a nucleic acid sequence of a DNA molecule thatencodes a Cuphea pulcherrima gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 6 sets forth a nucleic acid sequence of a DNA molecule thatencodes a Brassica napus S8 gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 7 sets forth a nucleic acid sequence of a DNA molecule thatencodes a Brassica napus P4 gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 8 sets forth a nucleic acid sequence of a DNA molecule thatencodes a Brassica napus S8 gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 9 sets forth a nucleic acid sequence of a DNA molecule thatencodes a Brassica napus P4 gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 10 sets forth a nucleic acid sequence of a DNA molecule thatencodes a Lycopersicon esculentum gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 11 sets forth a nucleic acid sequence of a DNA molecule thatencodes a Glycine max gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase 1.

SEQ ID NO: 12 sets forth a nucleic acid sequence of a DNA molecule thatencodes a Glycine max gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase 2.

SEQ ID NO: 13 sets forth a nucleic acid sequence of a DNA molecule thatencodes a Glycine max gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase 3.

SEQ ID NO: 14 sets forth a nucleic acid sequence of a DNA molecule thatencodes a Tagetes erecta gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 15 sets forth a nucleic acid sequence of a DNA molecule thatencodes a Sorghum bicolor gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 16 sets forth a nucleic acid sequence of a DNA molecule thatencodes a Nostoc punctiforme gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 17 sets forth a nucleic acid sequence of a DNA molecule thatencodes an Anabaena gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 18 set forth a derived amino acid sequence of an Arabidopsisthaliana gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 19 sets forth a derived amino acid sequence of an Arabidopsisthaliana, Columbia ecotype, gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 20 sets forth a derived amino acid sequence of an Oryzasativa gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 21 sets forth a derived amino acid sequence of a Zea maysgamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 22 sets forth a derived amino acid sequence of a Gossypiumhirsutum gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 23 sets forth a derived amino acid sequence of a Cupheapulcherrima gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 24 sets forth a derived amino acid sequence of a Brassicanapus S8 gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 25 sets forth a derived amino acid sequence of a Brassicanapus P4 gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 26 sets forth a derived amino acid sequence of a Lycopersiconesculentum gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 27 sets forth a derived amino acid sequence of a Glycine maxgamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 28 sets forth a derived amino acid sequence of a Glycine maxgamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 29 sets forth a derived amino acid sequence of a Glycine maxgamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 30 sets forth a derived amino acid sequence of a Tageteserecta gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 31 sets forth a derived amino acid sequence of a Sorghumbicolor gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 32 sets forth an amino acid sequence of a pea rubisco smallsubunit chloroplast targeting sequence (CTP1).

SEQ ID NO: 33 sets forth a derived mature amino acid sequence of aBrassica napus S8 gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 34 sets forth a derived mature amino acid sequence of aBrassica napus P4 gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 35 sets forth a derived mature amino acid sequence of aCuphea pulcherrima gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 36 sets forth a derived mature amino acid sequence of aGossypium hirsutum gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 37 sets forth a derived mature amino acid sequence of aTagetes erecta gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 38 sets forth a derived mature amino acid sequence of a Zeamays gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 39 sets forth a derived amino acid sequence of a Nostocpunctiforme gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 40 sets forth a derived amino acid sequence of an Anabaenagamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 41 sets forth an amino acid sequence of Synechocystisgamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 42 sets forth a nucleic acid sequence of a nucleic acidmolecule encoding a Synechocystis pcc 68032-methyl-6-phytylplastoquinol/2-methyl-6-solanylplastoquinol-9methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 43 sets forth a nucleic acid sequence of a nucleic acidmolecule encoding an Anabaena2-methyl-6-phytylplastoquinol/2-methyl-6-solanylplastoquinol-9methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 44 sets forth a nucleic acid sequence of a nucleic acidmolecule encoding a Synechococcus2-methyl-6-phytylplastoquinol/2-methyl-6-solanylplastoquinol-9methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 45 sets forth a nucleic acid sequence of a nucleic acidmolecule encoding a Prochlorococcus marinus2-methyl-6-phytylplastoquinol/2-methyl-6-solanylplastoquinol-9methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 46 sets forth a derived amino acid sequence of anSynechocystis pcc 68032-methyl-6-phytylplastoquinol/2-methyl-6-solanylplastoquinol-9methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 47 sets forth a derived amino acid sequence of an Anabaena2-methyl-6-phytylplastoquinol/2-methyl-6-solanylplastoquinol-9methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 48 sets forth a derived amino acid sequence of aSynechococcus2-methyl-6-phytylplastoquinol/2-methyl-6-solanylplastoquinol-9methyltransferase SEQ ID NO: 49 sets forth a derived amino acid sequenceof a Prochlorococcus2-methyl-6-phytylplastoquinol/2-methyl-6-solanylplastoquinol-9methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 50 sets forth a nucleic acid sequence of an Oryza salivagamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NOs: 51 and 52 set forth a nucleic acid sequence of primers foruse in amplifying a Brassica napus S8 gamma methyl transferase.

SEQ ID NOs: 53 and 54 set forth a nucleic acid sequence of primers foruse in amplifying a Brassica napus P4 gamma methyl transferase.

SEQ ID NOs: 55 and 56 set forth a nucleic acid sequence of primers foruse in amplifying a Cuphea pulcherrima gamma methyl transferase.

SEQ ID NOs: 57 and 58 set forth a nucleic acid sequence of primers foruse in amplifying a Gossypium hirsutum gamma methyl transferase.

SEQ ID NOs: 59 and 60 set forth a nucleic acid sequence of primers foruse in amplifying a mature Brassica napus S8 gamma methyl transferaseand a mature Brassica napus P4 gamma methyl transferase.

SEQ ID NOs: 61 and 62 set forth a nucleic acid sequence of primers foruse in amplifying a mature Cuphea pulcherrima gamma methyl transferase.

SEQ ID NOs: 63 and 64 set forth a nucleic acid sequence of primers foruse in amplifying a mature Gossypium hirsutum gamma methyl transferase.

SEQ ID NOs: 65 and 66 set forth a nucleic acid sequence of primers foruse in amplifying a mature Tagetes erecta gamma methyl transferase.

SEQ ID NOs: 67 and 68 set forth a nucleic acid sequence of primers foruse in amplifying a Nostoc punctiforme gamma methyl transferase.

SEQ ID NOs: 69 and 70 set forth a nucleic acid sequence of primers foruse in amplifying an Anabaena gamma methyl transferase.

SEQ ID NOs: 71 and 72 set forth a nucleic acid sequence of primers foruse in amplifying an Anabaena2-methyl-6-phytylplastoquinol/2-methyl-6-solanylplastoquinol-9methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NOs: 73 and 74 set forth a nucleic acid sequence of primers foruse in amplifying a mature Zea mays gamma methyl transferase.

SEQ ID NOs: 75 and 76 set forth a nucleic acid sequence of primers foruse in amplifying an Arabidopsis gamma methyl transferase.

SEQ ID NOs: 77 and 78 set forth a nucleic acid sequence of primers foruse in amplifying an Arabidopsis gamma methyl transferase.

SEQ ID NOs: 79 and 80 set forth a nucleic acid sequence of primers foruse in amplifying an Arcelin 5 promoter.

SEQ ID NO: 81 sets forth a 5′ translational start region of a nucleicacid sequence corresponding to an Arcelin 5 promoter from pARC5-1

SEQ ID NO: 82 sets forth a 5′ translational start region of a nucleicacid sequence corresponding to an Arcelin 5 promoter from pARC5-1M.

SEQ ID NOs: 83 and 84 set forth nucleic acid sequences of primers foruse in amplifying an Anabaena putative-MT1 coding sequence.

SEQ ID NO: 85 sets forth a nucleic acid sequence of a Zea maysgamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES

FIG. 1 is a schematic of construct pET-DEST42.

FIG. 2 is a schematic of construct pCGN9979.

FIG. 3 is a schematic of construct pMON26592.

FIG. 4 is a schematic of construct pMON26593.

FIG. 5 is a schematic of construct pMON55524.

FIG. 6 is a schematic of construct pMON36500.

FIG. 7 is a schematic of construct pMON36501.

FIG. 8 is a schematic of construct pMON36502.

FIG. 9 is a schematic of construct pMON36503.

FIG. 10 is a schematic of construct pMON36504.

FIG. 11 is a schematic of construct pMON36505.

FIG. 12 is a schematic of construct pMON36506.

FIG. 13 is a schematic of construct pMON67157.

FIG. 14 is a graph depicting the soy seed tocopherol content andcomposition from pooled seed of the R1 generation of plants transformedwith pMON36503. This construct expresses an A. thaliana GMT under p7Spromoter control.

FIG. 15 is a graph depicting the soy seed tocopherol content andcomposition from pooled seed of the R1 generation of plants transformedwith pMON36505. This construct expresses an A. thaliana GMT underarcelin5 promoter control.

FIG. 16 is a graph depicting the soy seed tocopherol content andcomposition from pooled seed of the R1 generation of plants transformedwith pMON36506. This construct expresses an A. thaliana GMT under thecontrol of the modified arcelin 5 promoter.

FIG. 17 is a graph representing the enzyme activities of variousgamma-methyltransferases (GMT) and a tocopherol methyl transferase 1(MT1) in recombinant E. coli crude extract preparations. Enzymeactivities are expressed as either pmol α-tocopherol (GMT) or2,3-dimethyl-5-phytylplastoquinol (MT1) formation per mg protein permin. Vector designations stand for the following recombinant genes:pMON67171, mature cotton GMT; pMON67173, mature Cuphea pulcherrima GMT;pMON67177, mature marigold GMT; pMON67181, mature Brassica napus S8 GMT;pMON67183, Zea mays GMT; pMON67175, Anabaena GMT; pMON67176, Nostoc GMT;and pMON67174, Anabaena MT1.

FIG. 18 is an HPLC chromatogram, representing the methyltransferaseactivity of recombinant expressed Anabaena methyltransferase 1. Enzymeactivity is monitored on crude cell extracts from E. coli harboringpMON67174.

FIG. 19 is an HPLC chromatogram, representing the Methyltransferaseactivity of recombinant expressed Anabaena methyltransferase 1 without2-methylphytylplastoquinol substrate (negative control). Enzyme activityis monitored on crude cell extracts from E. coli harboring pMON67174.

FIG. 20 is an HPLC chromatogram, representing the methyltransferase 1activity in isolated pea chloroplasts (positive control).

FIGS. 21A and 21B are graphs representing the α and γ-tocopherol levelsin Arabidopsis T₂ seed from 5 transgenic control plants containing thenapin binary vector (9979), 15 transgenic plants expressing theArabidopsis thaliana GMT gene (Columbia ecotype) under the control ofthe napin promoter (67156) and 13 transgenic plants expressing theBrassica napus P4 GMT under the control of the napin promoter (67159).

FIGS. 22A and 22B are graphs representing the α and γ-tocopherol levelsin Arabidopsis T₂ seeds from 5 transgenic plants containing the napinbinary vector (9979), 15 transgenic plants expressing the Cupheapulcherrima GMT gene under the control of the napin promoter (67158) and1 transgenic plant expressing the Brassica napus P4 GMT under thecontrol of the napin promoter (67159).

FIG. 23 is a graph representing the average seed γ-tocopherol level intransformed Arabidopsis plants harboring expression constructs for theArabidopsis thaliana ecotype Columbia GMT (67156), the cuphea GMT(67158), the Brassica P4 GMT (67159), the cotton GMT (67160), and theBrassica S8 GMT (67170).

FIG. 24 is a graph representing the average seed α-tocopherol level intransformed Brassica plants.

FIG. 25 shows the percent of seed 6-tocopherol in Arabidopsis T2 seedfrom lines expressing MT1 under the control of the napin promoter.

FIG. 26 shows T₃ seed δ-tocopherol levels in two lines expressing MT1under the control of the napin promoter.

FIG. 27 represents pMON67212.

FIG. 28 represents pMON67213.

FIG. 29 shows total tocopherol level for Arabidopsis transformed with anMT1 and prenyltransferase double construct.

FIG. 30 shows γ tocopherol level for Arabidopsis transformed with an MT1and prenyltransferase double construct.

FIG. 31 shows δ-tocopherol level for Arabidopsis transformed with an MT1and prenyltransferase double construct.

FIG. 32 shows α-tocopherol level for Arabidopsis transformed with an MT1and prenyltransferase double construct.

FIG. 33 is a graph showing 2-Methylphytylplastoquinol methyltransferaseactivity obtained with recombinant proteins and a pea chloroplastcontrol. Data are obtained with recombinant proteins from microbial andplant sources.

FIG. 34 is a graph showing GMT substrate specificity forgamma-tocopherols versus gamma-tocotrienols. GMT activity is measuredwith recombinant expressed gamma methyltransferases from cotton,Anabaena, and corn, using gamma tocopherol or gamma-tocotrienol andS-adenosylmethionine as a substrate.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The present invention provides a number of agents, for example, nucleicacid molecules and polypeptides associated with the synthesis oftocopherol, and provides uses of such agents.

Agents

The agents of the invention will preferably be “biologically active”with respect to either a structural attribute, such as the capacity of anucleic acid to hybridize to another nucleic acid molecule, or theability of a protein to be bound by an antibody (or to compete withanother molecule for such binding). Alternatively, such an attribute maybe catalytic and thus involve the capacity of the agent to mediate achemical reaction or response. The agents will preferably be“substantially purified.” The term “substantially purified,” as usedherein, refers to a molecule separated from substantially all othermolecules normally associated with it in its native state. Morepreferably a substantially purified molecule is the predominant speciespresent in a preparation. A substantially purified molecule may begreater than 60% free, preferably 75% free, more preferably 90% free,and most preferably 95% free from the other molecules (exclusive ofsolvent) present in the natural mixture. The term “substantiallypurified” is not intended to encompass molecules present in their nativestate.

The agents of the invention may also be recombinant. As used herein, theterm recombinant means any agent (e.g., DNA, peptide etc.), that is, orresults, however indirectly, from human manipulation of a nucleic acidmolecule.

It is understood that the agents of the invention may be labeled withreagents that facilitate detection of the agent (e.g., fluorescentlabels, Prober et al., Science 238:336-340 (1987); Albarella et al., EP144914; chemical labels, Sheldon et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,582,789;Albarella et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,563,417; modified bases, Miyoshi etal., EP 119448).

Nucleic Acid Molecules

Agents of the invention include nucleic acid molecules. In a preferredaspect of the present invention the nucleic acid molecule comprises anucleic acid sequence, which encodes a gamma-tocopherolmethyltransferase. As used herein a gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase(also referred to as GMT, γ-GMT, γ-MT, γ-TMT or gamma-methyltransferase)is any polypeptide that is capable of specifically catalyzing theconversion of γ-tocopherol into α-tocopherol. In certain plant speciessuch as soybean, GMT can also catalyze the conversion of β-tocopherol toβ-tocopherol. In other plants, mainly monocotyledons such as corn andwheat, GMT can also catalyze the conversion of γ-tocotrienol toα-tocotrienol and δ-tocotrienol to β-tocotrienol. A preferredgamma-tocopherol methyltransferase is a plant or cynobacterialgamma-tocopherol methyltransferase, more preferably a gamma-tocopherolmethyltransferase that is also found in an organism selected from thegroup consisting of Arabidopsis, rice, corn, cotton, cuphea, oilseedrape, tomato, soybean, marigold, sorghum, and leek, most preferably agamma-tocopherol methyltransferase that is also found in an organismselected from the group consisting of Arabidopsis thaliana, Oryzasaliva, Zea mays, Gossypium hirsutum, Cuphea pulcherrima, Brassicanapus, Lycopersicon esculentum, Glycine max, Tagetes erecta, and Liliumasiaticum. An example of a more preferred gamma-tocopherolmethyltransferase is a polypeptide with one of the amino acid sequencesset forth in SEQ ID NOs: 19-31 and 33-38.

In another embodiment of the invention, genomic DNA is used to transformany of the plants disclosed herein. Genomic DNA (e.g. SEQ ID NOs: 6 and7) can be particularly useful for transforming monocotyledonous plants(e.g. SEQ ID NOs: 6 and 7).

In another preferred aspect of the present invention the nucleic acidmolecule of the invention comprises a nucleic acid sequence selectedfrom the group consisting of SEQ ID NOs: 2-17, 50, and 85, andcomplements thereof and fragments of either. In a further aspect of thepresent invention the nucleic acid molecule comprises a nucleic acidsequence encoding an amino acid sequence selected from the groupconsisting of SEQ ID NOs: 19-31, 33, and 38 and fragments thereof.

In another preferred aspect of the present invention the nucleic acidmolecule comprises a nucleic acid sequence, which encodes a2-methyl-6-phytylplastoquinol/2-methyl-6-solanylplastoquinol-9methyltransferase. As used herein a2-methyl-6-phytylplastoquinol/2-methyl-6-solanylplastoquinol-9methyltransferase (MT1) is any protein that is capable of specificallycatalyzing the conversion of 2-methyl-6-phytylplastoquinol,2-methyl-5-phytylplastoquinol or 2-methyl-3-phytylplastoquinol to2,3-dimethyl-6-phytylplastoquinol. A preferred MT 1 is a cyanobacterialMT 1, more preferably an MT 1 that is also found in an organism selectedfrom the group consisting of Anabaena, Synechococcus and Prochlorococcusmarinus. An example of a more preferred MT 1 is a polypeptide with theamino acid sequence selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NOs:46-49.

In another preferred aspect of the present invention the nucleic acidmolecule of the invention comprises a nucleic acid sequence selectedfrom the group consisting of SEQ ID NOs: 42-45 and complements thereofand fragments of either. In a further aspect of the present inventionthe nucleic acid molecule comprises a nucleic acid sequence encoding anamino acid sequence selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NOs:46-49 and fragments thereof.

In another preferred aspect of the present invention a nucleic acidmolecule comprises nucleotide sequences encoding a plastid transitpeptide operably fused to a nucleic acid molecule that encodes a proteinor fragment of the present invention.

It is understood that in a further aspect of the present invention, thenucleic acids can encode a protein that differs from any of the proteinsin that one or more amino acids have been deleted, substituted or addedwithout altering the function. For example, it is understood that codonscapable of coding for such conservative amino acid substitutions areknown in the art.

One subset of the nucleic acid molecules of the invention is fragmentnucleic acids molecules. Fragment nucleic acid molecules may consist ofsignificant portion(s) of, or indeed most of, the nucleic acid moleculesof the invention, such as those specifically disclosed. Alternatively,the fragments may comprise smaller oligonucleotides (having from about15 to about 400 nucleotide residues and more preferably, about 15 toabout 30 nucleotide residues, or about 50 to about 100 nucleotideresidues, or about 100 to about 200 nucleotide residues, or about 200 toabout 400 nucleotide residues, or about 275 to about 350 nucleotideresidues).

A fragment of one or more of the nucleic acid molecules of the inventionmay be a probe and specifically a PCR probe. A PCR probe is a nucleicacid molecule capable of initiating a polymerase activity while in adouble-stranded structure with another nucleic acid. Various methods fordetermining the structure of PCR probes and PCR techniques exist in theart. Computer generated searches using programs such as Primer3(www.genome.wi.mit.edu/cgi-bin/primer/primer3.cgi), STSPipeline(www.genome.wi.mit.edu/cgi-bin/www-STS_Pipeline), or GeneUp (Pesole etal., BioTechniques 25:112-123 (1998)), for example, can be used toidentify potential PCR primers.

Another subset of the nucleic acid molecules of the invention includenucleic acid molecules that encode a polypeptide or fragment thereof.

Nucleic acid molecules or fragments thereof of the present invention arecapable of specifically hybridizing to other nucleic acid moleculesunder certain circumstances. Nucleic acid molecules of the presentinvention include those that specifically hybridize to nucleic acidmolecules having a nucleic acid sequence selected from the groupconsisting of SEQ ID NOs: 2-17, 50, and 85, and complements thereof.Nucleic acid molecules of the present invention also include those thatspecifically hybridize to nucleic acid molecules encoding an amino acidsequence selected from SEQ ID NOs: 19-31 and 33-38 and fragmentsthereof.

As used herein, two nucleic acid molecules are said to be capable ofspecifically hybridizing to one another if the two molecules are capableof forming an anti-parallel, double-stranded nucleic acid structure.

A nucleic acid molecule is said to be the “complement” of anothernucleic acid molecule if they exhibit complete complementarity. As usedherein, molecules are said to exhibit “complete complementarity” whenevery nucleotide of one of the molecules is complementary to anucleotide of the other. Two molecules are said to be “minimallycomplementary” if they can hybridize to one another with sufficientstability to permit them to remain annealed to one another under atleast conventional “low-stringency” conditions. Similarly, the moleculesare said to be “complementary” if they can hybridize to one another withsufficient stability to permit them to remain annealed to one anotherunder conventional “high-stringency” conditions. Conventional stringencyconditions are described by Sambrook et al., Molecular Cloning, ALaboratory Manual, 2nd Ed., Cold Spring Harbor Press, Cold SpringHarbor, N.Y. (1989), and by Haymes et al., Nucleic Acid Hybridization, APractical Approach, IRL Press, Washington, D.C. (1985). Departures fromcomplete complementarity are therefore permissible, as long as suchdepartures do not completely preclude the capacity of the molecules toform a double-stranded structure. Thus, in order for a nucleic acidmolecule to serve as a primer or probe it need only be sufficientlycomplementary in sequence to be able to form a stable double-strandedstructure under the particular solvent and salt concentrations employed.

Appropriate stringency conditions which promote DNA hybridization are,for example, 6.0× sodium chloride/sodium citrate (SSC) at about 45° C.,followed by a wash of 2.0×SSC at 20-25° C., are known to those skilledin the art or can be found in Current Protocols in Molecular Biology,John Wiley & Sons, N.Y. (1989), 6.3.1-6.3.6. For example, the saltconcentration in the wash step can be selected from a low stringency ofabout 2.0×SSC at 50° C. to a high stringency of about 0.2×SSC at 65° C.In addition, the temperature in the wash step can be increased from lowstringency conditions at room temperature, about 22° C., to highstringency conditions at about 65° C. Both temperature and salt may bevaried, or either the temperature or the salt concentration may be heldconstant while the other variable is changed.

In a preferred embodiment, a nucleic acid of the present invention willspecifically hybridize to one or more of the nucleic acid molecules setforth in SEQ ID NOs: 2-17, 50, and 85 and complements thereof undermoderately stringent conditions, for example at about 2.0×SSC and about65° C.

In a particularly preferred embodiment, a nucleic acid of the presentinvention will include those nucleic acid molecules that specificallyhybridize to one or more of the nucleic acid molecules set forth in SEQID NOs: 2-17, 50, and 85 and complements thereof under high stringencyconditions such as 0.2×SSC and about 65° C.

In one aspect of the present invention, the nucleic acid molecules ofthe present invention have one or more of the nucleic acid sequences setforth in SEQ ID NOs: 2-17, 50, and 85 and complements thereof. Inanother aspect of the present invention, one or more of the nucleic acidmolecules of the present invention share between 100% and 90% sequenceidentity with one or more of the nucleic acid sequences set forth in SEQID NOs: 2-17, 50, and 85 and complements thereof and fragments ofeither. In a further aspect of the present invention, one or more of thenucleic acid molecules of the present invention share between 100% and95% sequence identity with one or more of the nucleic acid sequences setforth in SEQ ID NOs: 2-17, 50, and 85, complements thereof, andfragments of either. In a more preferred aspect of the presentinvention, one or more of the nucleic acid molecules of the presentinvention share between 100% and 98% sequence identity with one or moreof the nucleic acid sequences set forth in SEQ ID NOs: 2-17, 50, and 85,complements thereof and fragments of either. In an even more preferredaspect of the present invention, one or more of the nucleic acidmolecules of the present invention share between 100% and 99% sequenceidentity with one or more of the sequences set forth in SEQ ID NOs:2-17, 50, and 85, complements thereof, and fragments of either.

In a preferred embodiment the percent identity calculations areperformed using BLASTN or BLASTP (default, parameters, version 2.0.8,Altschul et al., Nucleic Acids Res. 25: 3389-3402 (1997)).

A nucleic acid molecule of the invention can also encode a homologpolypeptide. As used herein, a homolog polypeptide molecule or fragmentthereof is a counterpart protein molecule or fragment thereof in asecond species (e.g., corn rubisco small subunit is a homolog ofArabidopsis rubisco small subunit). A homolog can also be generated bymolecular evolution or DNA shuffling techniques, so that the moleculeretains at least one functional or structure characteristic of theoriginal polypeptide (see, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,811,238).

In another embodiment, the homolog is selected from the group consistingof alfalfa, Arabidopsis, barley, Brassica campestris, oilseed rape,broccoli, cabbage, canola, citrus, cotton, garlic, oat, onion, flax, anornamental plant, peanut, pepper, potato, rapeseed, rice, rye, sorghum,strawberry, sugarcane, sugarbeet, tomato, wheat, poplar, pine, fir,eucalyptus, apple, lettuce, lentils, grape, banana, tea, turf grasses,sunflower, soybean, corn, Phaseolus, crambe, mustard, castor bean,sesame, cottonseed, linseed, safflower, and oil palm. More particularly,preferred homologs are selected from canola, corn, Brassica campestris,oilseed rape, soybean, crambe, mustard, castor bean, peanut, sesame,cottonseed, linseed, rapeseed, safflower, oil palm, flax, and sunflower.In an even more preferred embodiment, the homolog is selected from thegroup consisting of canola, rapeseed, corn, Brassica campestris,Brassica napus, soybean, sunflower, safflower, oil palms, and peanut. Ina particularly preferred embodiment, the homolog is soybean. In aparticularly preferred embodiment, the homolog is canola. In aparticularly preferred embodiment, the homolog is Brassica napus.

In another further aspect of the present invention, nucleic acidmolecules of the present invention can comprise sequences that differfrom those encoding a polypeptide or fragment thereof in SEQ ID NOs:19-31 and 33-38 due to the fact that a polypeptide can have one or moreconservative amino acid changes, and nucleic acid sequences coding forthe polypeptide can therefore have sequence differences. It isunderstood that codons capable of coding for such conservative aminoacid substitutions are known in the art.

It is well known in the art that one or more amino acids in a nativesequence can be substituted with other amino acid(s), the charge andpolarity of which are similar to that of the native amino acid, i.e., aconservative amino acid substitution. Conservative substitutes for anamino acid within the native polypeptide sequence can be selected fromother members of the class to which the amino acid belongs. Amino acidscan be divided into the following four groups: (1) acidic amino acids,(2) basic amino acids, (3) neutral polar amino acids, and (4) neutral,nonpolar amino acids. Representative amino acids within these variousgroups include, but are not limited to, (1) acidic (negatively charged)amino acids such as aspartic acid and glutamic acid; (2) basic(positively charged) amino acids such as arginine, histidine, andlysine; (3) neutral polar amino acids such as glycine, serine,threonine, cysteine, cystine, tyrosine, asparagine, and glutamine; and(4) neutral nonpolar (hydrophobic) amino acids such as alanine, leucine,isoleucine, valine, proline, phenylalanine, tryptophan, and methionine.

Conservative amino acid substitution within the native polypeptidesequence can be made by replacing one amino acid from within one ofthese groups with another ammo acid from within the same group. In apreferred aspect, biologically functional equivalents of the proteins orfragments thereof of the present invention can have ten or fewerconservative amino acid changes, more preferably seven or fewerconservative amino acid changes, and most preferably five or fewerconservative amino acid changes. The encoding nucleotide sequence willthus have corresponding base substitutions, permitting it to encodebiologically functional equivalent forms of the polypeptides of thepresent invention.

It is understood that certain amino acids may be substituted for otheramino acids in a protein structure without appreciable loss ofinteractive binding capacity with structures such as, for example,antigen-binding regions of antibodies or binding sites on substratemolecules. Because it is the interactive capacity and nature of aprotein that defines that protein's biological functional activity,certain amino acid sequence substitutions can be made in a proteinsequence and, of course, its underlying DNA coding sequence and,nevertheless, a protein with like properties can still be obtained. Itis thus contemplated by the inventors that various changes may be madein the peptide sequences of the proteins or fragments of the presentinvention, or corresponding DNA sequences that encode said peptides,without appreciable loss of their biological utility or activity. It isunderstood that codons capable of coding for such amino acid changes areknown in the art.

In making such changes, the hydropathic index of amino acids may beconsidered. The importance of the hydropathic amino acid index inconferring interactive biological function on a protein is generallyunderstood in the art (Kyte and Doolittle, J. Mol. Biol. 157, 105-132(1982)). It is accepted that the relative hydropathic character of theamino acid contributes to the secondary structure of the resultantpolypeptide, which in turn defines the interaction of the protein withother molecules, for example, enzymes, substrates, receptors, DNA,antibodies, antigens, and the like.

Each amino acid has been assigned a hydropathic index on the basis ofits hydrophobicity and charge characteristics (Kyte and Doolittle, J.Mol. Biol. 157:105-132 (1982)); these are isoleucine (+4.5), valine(+4.2), leucine (+3.8), phenylalanine (+2.8), cysteine/cystine (+2.5),methionine (+1.9), alanine (+1.8), glycine (−0.4), threonine (−0.7),serine (−0.8), tryptophan (−0.9), tyrosine (−1.3), proline (−1.6),histidine (−3.2), glutamate (−3.5), glutamine (−3.5), aspartate (−3.5),asparagine (−3.5), lysine (−3.9), and arginine (−4.5).

In making such changes, the substitution of amino acids whosehydropathic indices are within ±2 is preferred, those that are within ±1are particularly preferred, and those within ±0.5 are even moreparticularly preferred.

It is also understood in the art that the substitution of like aminoacids can be made effectively on the basis of hydrophilicity. U.S. Pat.No. 4,554,101 states that the greatest local average hydrophilicity of aprotein, as governed by the hydrophilicity of its adjacent amino acids,correlates with a biological property of the protein.

As detailed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,554,101, the following hydrophilicityvalues have been assigned to amino acid residues: arginine (+3.0),lysine (+3.0), aspartate (+3.0±1), glutamate (+3.0±1), serine (+0.3),asparagine (+0.2), glutamine (+0.2), glycine (0), threonine (−0.4),proline (−0.5±1), alanine (−0.5), histidine (−0.5), cysteine (−1.0),methionine (−1.3), valine (−1.5), leucine (−1.8), isoleucine (−1.8),tyrosine (−2.3), phenylalanine (−2.5), and tryptophan (−3.4).

In making such changes, the substitution of amino acids whosehydrophilicity values are within ±2 is preferred, those that are within±1 are particularly preferred, and those within ±0.5 are even moreparticularly preferred.

In a further aspect of the present invention, one or more of the nucleicacid molecules of the present invention differ in nucleic acid sequencefrom those for which a specific sequence is provided herein because oneor more codons has been replaced with a codon that encodes aconservative substitution of the amino acid originally encoded.

Agents of the invention include nucleic acid molecules that encode atleast about a contiguous 10 amino acid region of a polypeptide of thepresent invention, more preferably at least about a contiguous 25, 40,50, 100, or 125 amino acid region of a polypeptide of the presentinvention.

In a preferred embodiment, any of the nucleic acid molecules of thepresent invention can be operably linked to a promoter region thatfunctions in a plant cell to cause the production of an mRNA molecule,where the nucleic acid molecule that is linked to the promoter isheterologous with respect to that promoter. As used herein,“heterologous” means not naturally occurring together.

Protein and Peptide Molecules

A class of agents includes one or more of the polypeptide moleculesencoded by a nucleic acid agent of the invention. A particular preferredclass of proteins is that having an amino acid sequence selected fromthe group consisting of SEQ ID NOs: 19-31 and 33-38 and fragmentsthereof. Polypeptide agents may have C-terminal or N-terminal amino acidsequence extensions. One class of N-terminal extensions employed in apreferred embodiment are plastid transit peptides. When employed,plastid transit peptides can be operatively linked to the N-terminalsequence, thereby permitting the localization of the agent polypeptidesto plastids. In a preferred embodiment the plastid targeting sequence isa CTP1 sequence (SEQ ID NO: 32). See WO 00/61771.

In a preferred aspect a protein of the present invention is targeted toa plastid using either a native transit peptide sequence or aheterologous transit peptide sequence. In the case of nucleic acidsequences corresponding to nucleic acid sequences of non-higher plantorganisms such as cyanobacteria, such nucleic acid sequences can bemodified to attach the coding sequence of the protein to a nucleic acidsequence of a plastid targeting peptide. Examples of cynobacterialnucleic acid sequences that can be so attached are those having aminoacid sequence set forth in SEQ ID NOs: 42-45.

As used herein, the term “protein,” “peptide molecule,” or “polypeptide”includes any molecule that comprises five or more amino acids. It iswell known in the art that protein, peptide or polypeptide molecules mayundergo modification, including posttranslational modifications, suchas, but not limited to, disulfide bond formation, glycosylation,phosphorylation, or oligomerization. Thus, as used herein, the term“protein,” “peptide molecule,” or “polypeptide” includes any proteinthat is modified by any biological or non-biological process. The terms“amino acid” and “amino acids” refer to all naturally occurring L-aminoacids. This definition is meant to include norleucine, norvaline,ornithine, homocysteine, and homoserine.

One or more of the protein or fragments thereof, peptide molecules, orpolypeptide molecules may be produced via chemical synthesis, or morepreferably, by expression in a suitable bacterial or eukaryotic host.Suitable methods for expression are described by Sambrook et al., In:Molecular Cloning, A Laboratory Manual, 2nd Edition, Cold Spring HarborPress, Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y. (1989) or similar texts.

A “protein fragment” is a peptide or polypeptide molecule whose aminoacid sequence comprises a subset of the amino acid sequence of thatprotein. A protein or fragment thereof that comprises one or moreadditional peptide regions not derived from that protein is a “fusion”protein. Such molecules may be derivatized to contain carbohydrate orother moieties (such as keyhole limpet hemocyanin). Fusion protein orpeptide molecules of the invention are preferably produced viarecombinant means.

Another class of agents comprise protein, peptide molecules, orpolypeptide molecules or fragments or fusions thereof comprising SEQ IDNOs: 19-31 and 33-38 and fragments thereof in which conservative,non-essential or non-relevant amino acid residues have been added,replaced or deleted. Computerized means for designing modifications inprotein structure are known in the art (Dahiyat and Mayo, Science278:82-87 (1997)).

A protein, peptide or polypeptide of the invention can also be a homologprotein, peptide or polypeptide. As used herein, a homolog protein,peptide or polypeptide or fragment thereof is a counterpart protein,peptide or polypeptide or fragment thereof in a second species. Ahomolog can also be generated by molecular evolution or DNA shufflingtechniques, so that the molecule retains at least one functional orstructure characteristic of the original (see, for example, U.S. Pat.No. 5,811,238).

In another embodiment, the homolog is selected from the group consistingof alfalfa, Arabidopsis, barley, broccoli, cabbage, canola, citrus,cotton, garlic, oat, onion, flax, an ornamental plant, peanut, pepper,potato, rapeseed, rice, rye, sorghum, strawberry, sugarcane, sugarbeet,tomato, wheat, poplar, pine, fir, eucalyptus, apple, lettuce, lentils,grape, banana, tea, turf grasses, sunflower, soybean, corn, andPhaseolus. More particularly, preferred homologs are selected fromcanola, rapeseed, corn, Brassica campestris, oilseed rape, soybean,crambe, mustard, castor bean, peanut, sesame, cottonseed, linseed,safflower, oil palm, flax, and sunflower. In an even more preferredembodiment, the homolog is selected from the group consisting of canola,rapeseed, corn, Brassica campestris, oilseed rape, soybean, sunflower,safflower, oil palms, and peanut. In a preferred embodiment, the homologis soybean. In a preferred embodiment, the homolog is canola. In apreferred embodiment, the homolog is Brassica napus.

In a preferred embodiment, the nucleic acid molecules of the presentinvention or complements and fragments of either can be utilized toobtain such homologs.

Agents of the invention include proteins and fragments thereofcomprising at least about a contiguous 10 amino acid region preferablycomprising at least about a contiguous 20 amino acid region, even morepreferably comprising at least about a contiguous 25, 35, 50, 75 or 100amino acid region of a protein of the present invention. In anotherpreferred embodiment, the proteins of the present invention includebetween about 10 and about 25 contiguous amino acid region, morepreferably between about 20 and about 50 contiguous amino acid region,and even more preferably between about 40 and about 80 contiguous aminoacid region.

Plant Constructs and Plant Transformants

One or more of the nucleic acid molecules of the invention may be usedin plant transformation or transfection. Exogenous genetic material maybe transferred into a plant cell and the plant cell regenerated into awhole, fertile or sterile plant. Exogenous genetic material is anygenetic material, whether naturally occurring or otherwise, from anysource that is capable of being inserted into any organism.

In a preferred aspect of the present invention the exogenous geneticmaterial comprises a nucleic acid sequence that encodes agamma-tocopherol methyltransferase. In a particularly preferredembodiment of the present invention, the exogenous genetic material ofthe invention comprises a nucleic acid sequence of SEQ ID NO: 2. In afurther aspect of the present invention the exogenous genetic materialcomprises a nucleic acid sequence encoding an amino acid sequenceselected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NOs: 19-31, 33-38, 39-41,and 46-49 and fragments thereof.

In another preferred aspect of the present invention the exogenousgenetic material comprises a nucleic acid sequence that encodes a2-methyl-6-phytylplastoquinol/2-methyl-6-solanylplastoquinol-9methyltransferase. In another preferred aspect of the present inventionthe exogenous genetic material of the invention comprises a nucleic acidsequence selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NOs: 42-45 andcomplements thereof and fragments of either. In a further aspect of thepresent invention the exogenous genetic material comprises a nucleicacid sequence encoding an amino acid sequence selected from the groupconsisting of SEQ ID NOs: 46-49 and fragments thereof. In a furtheraspect of the present invention, the nucleic acid sequences of theinvention also encode peptides involved in intracellular localization,export, or posttranslational modification.

In an embodiment of the present invention, exogenous genetic materialcomprising a GMT or fragment thereof is introduced into a plant with oneor more additional genes. In another embodiment of the presentinvention, exogenous genetic material comprising a MT1 or fragmentthereof is introduced into a plant with one or more additional genes. Inone embodiment, preferred combinations of genes include two or more ofthe following genes: tyrA, slr1736, A TPT2, dxs, dxr, GGPPS, HPPD, GMTMT1, tMT2, AANT1, sir 1737, or a plant ortholog and an antisenseconstruct for homogentisic acid dioxygenase (Kridl et al., Seed Sci.Res. 1:209:219 (1991); Keegstra, Cell 56(2):247-53 (1989); Nawrath, etal., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 91:12760-12764 (1994); Xia et al., J.Gen. Microbiol. 138:1309-1316 (1992); Cyanobase,www.kazusa.or.jp/cyanobase; Lois et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S. 95(5):2105-2110 (1998); Takahashi et al. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA. 95(17), 9879-9884 (1998); Norris et al, Plant Physiol. 117:1317-1323(1998); Bartley and Scolnik, Plant Physiol. 104:1469-1470 (1994), Smithet al, Plant J. 11: 83-92 (1997); WO 00/32757; WO 00/10380; Saint Guily,et al., Plant Physiol, 100(2):1069-1071 (1992); Sato et al, J DNA Res. 7(1):31-63 (2000)). In such combinations, one or more of the geneproducts can be directed to the plastid by the use of a plastidtargeting sequence. Alternatively, one or more of the gene products canbe localized in the cytoplasm. In a preferred aspect the gene productsof tyrA and HPPD are targeted to the cytoplasm. Such genes can beintroduced, for example, with the MT1 or GMT or both or fragment ofeither or both on a single construct, introduced on different constructsbut the same transformation event or introduced into separate plantsfollowed by one or more crosses to generate the desired combination ofgenes. In such combinations, a preferred promoter is a napin promoterand a preferred plastid targeting sequence is a CTP1 sequence. It ispreferred that gene products are targeted to the plastid.

A particularly preferred combination that can be introduced is a nucleicacid molecule encoding a GMT polypeptide and a nucleic acid moleculeencoding an MT1 polypeptide, where both polypeptides are targeted to theplastid and where one of such polypeptides is present and the other isintroduced. Both nucleic acid sequences encoding such polypeptides areintroduced using a single construct, or each polypeptide is introducedon separate constructs.

Another particularly preferred combination that can be introduced is anucleic acid molecule encoding an MT1 protein and a nucleic acidmolecule that results in the down regulation of a GMT protein. In suchan aspect, it is preferred that the plant accumulates eitherγ-tocopherol or γ-tocotrienol or both.

Such genetic material may be transferred into either monocotyledons ordicotyledons including, but not limited to canola, corn, soybean,Arabidopsis phaseolus, peanut, alfalfa, wheat, rice, oat, sorghum,rapeseed, rye, tritordeum, millet, fescue, perennial ryegrass,sugarcane, cranberry, papaya, banana, safflower, oil palms, flax,muskmelon, apple, cucumber, dendrobium, gladiolus, chrysanthemum,liliacea, cotton, eucalyptus, sunflower, Brassica campestris, Brassicanapus, turfgrass, sugarbeet, coffee and dioscorea (Christou, In:Particle Bombardment for Genetic Engineering of Plants, BiotechnologyIntelligence Unit. Academic Press, San Diego, Calif. (1996)), withcanola, corn, Brassica campestris, Brassica napus, rapeseed, soybean,crambe, mustard, castor bean, peanut, sesame, cottonseed, linseed,safflower, oil palm, flax, and sunflower preferred, and canola,rapeseed, corn, Brassica campestris, Brassica napus, soybean, sunflower,safflower, oil palms, and peanut preferred. In a more preferredembodiment, the genetic material is transferred into canola. In anothermore preferred embodiment, the genetic material is transferred intoBrassica napus. In another particularly preferred embodiment, thegenetic material is transferred into soybean. In another particularlypreferred embodiment of the present invention, the genetic material istransferred into soybean line 3244.

Transfer of a nucleic acid molecule that encodes a protein can result inexpression or overexpression of that polypeptide in a transformed cellor transgenic plant. One or more of the proteins or fragments thereofencoded by nucleic acid molecules of the invention may be overexpressedin a transformed cell or transformed plant. Such expression oroverexpression may be the result of transient or stable transfer of theexogenous genetic material.

In a preferred embodiment, expression or overexpression of a polypeptideof the present invention in a plant provides in that plant, relative toan untransformed plant with a similar genetic background, an increasedlevel of tocopherols.

In a preferred embodiment, expression, or overexpression of apolypeptide of the present invention in a plant provides in that plant,relative to an untransformed plant with a similar genetic background, anincreased level of α-tocopherols.

In a preferred embodiment, expression, or overexpression of apolypeptide of the present invention in a plant provides in that plant,relative to an untransformed plant with a similar genetic background, anincreased level of γ-tocopherols.

In a preferred embodiment, reduction of the expression, expression, oroverexpression of a polypeptide of the present invention in a plantprovides in that plant, relative to an untransformed plant with asimilar genetic background, an increased level of δ-tocopherols.

In a preferred embodiment, reduction of the expression, expression oroverexpression of a polypeptide of the present invention in a plantprovides in that plant, relative to an untransformed plant with asimilar genetic background, an increased level of tocotrienols.

In a preferred embodiment, reduction of the expression, expression, oroverexpression of a polypeptide of the present invention in a plantprovides in that plant, relative to an untransformed plant with asimilar genetic background, an increased level of α-tocotrienols.

In a preferred embodiment, reduction of the expression, expression, oroverexpression of a polypeptide of the present invention in a plantprovides in that plant, relative to an untransformed plant with asimilar genetic background, an increased level of δ-tocotrienols.

In a preferred embodiment, reduction of the expression, expression, oroverexpression of a polypeptide of the present invention in a plantprovides in that plant, relative to an untransformed plant with asimilar genetic background, an increased level of δ-tocotrienols.

In another embodiment, reduction of the expression, expression,overexpression of a polypeptide of the present invention in a plantprovides in that plant, or a tissue of that plant, relative to anuntransformed plant or plant tissue, with a similar genetic background,an increased level of an MT 1 or GMT protein or both or fragment ofeither.

In some embodiments, the levels of one or more products of thetocopherol biosynthesis pathway, including any one or more oftocopherols, α-tocopherols, γ-tocopherols, δ-tocopherols, β-tocopherols,tocotrienols, α-tocotrienols, γ-tocotrienols, δ-tocotrienols,β-tocotrienols, are increased by greater than about 10%, or morepreferably greater than about 25%, 50%, 200%, 1,000%, 2,000%, 2,500% or25,000%. The levels of products may be increased throughout an organismsuch as a plant or localized in one or more specific organs or tissuesof the organism. For example the levels of products may be increased inone or more of the tissues and organs of a plant including withoutlimitation: roots, tubers, stems, leaves, stalks, fruit, berries, nuts,bark, pods, seeds and flowers. A preferred organ is a seed.

In some embodiments, the levels of tocopherols or a species such asα-tocopherol may be altered. In some embodiments, the levels oftocotrienols may be altered. Such alteration can be compared to a plantwith a similar background.

In another embodiment, either the α-tocopherol level, α-tocotrienollevel, or both of plants that natively produce high levels of eitherα-tocopherol, α-tocotrienol or both (e.g., sunflowers), can be increasedby the introduction of a gene coding for an MT1 enzyme.

In a preferred aspect, a similar genetic background is a backgroundwhere the organisms being compared share about 50% or greater of theirnuclear genetic material. In a more preferred aspect a similar geneticbackground is a background where the organisms being compared shareabout 75% or greater, even more preferably about 90% or greater of theirnuclear genetic material. In another even more preferable aspect, asimilar genetic background is a background where the organisms beingcompared are plants, and the plants are isogenic except for any geneticmaterial originally introduced using plant transformation techniques.

In another preferred embodiment, reduction of the expression,expression, overexpression of a polypeptide of the present invention ina transformed plant may provide tolerance to a variety of stress, e.g.oxidative stress tolerance such as to oxygen or ozone, UV tolerance,cold tolerance, or fungal/microbial pathogen tolerance.

As used herein in a preferred aspect, a tolerance or resistance tostress is determined by the ability of a plant, when challenged by astress such as cold to produce a plant having a higher yield than onewithout such tolerance or resistance to stress. In a particularlypreferred aspect of the present invention, the tolerance or resistanceto stress is measured relative to a plant with a similar geneticbackground to the tolerant or resistance plant except that the plantreduces the expression, expresses or over expresses a protein orfragment thereof of the present invention.

Exogenous genetic material may be transferred into a host cell by theuse of a DNA vector or construct designed for such a purpose. Design ofsuch a vector is generally within the skill of the art (See, PlantMolecular Biology: A Laboratory Manual, Clark (ed.), Springer, N.Y.(1997)).

A construct or vector may include a plant promoter to express thepolypeptide of choice. In a preferred embodiment, any nucleic acidmolecules described herein can be operably linked to a promoter regionwhich functions in a plant cell to cause the production of an mRNAmolecule. For example, any promoter that functions in a plant cell tocause the production of an mRNA molecule, such as those promotersdescribed herein, without limitation, can be used. In a preferredembodiment, the promoter is a plant promoter.

A number of promoters that are active in plant cells have been describedin the literature. These include the nopaline synthase (NOS) promoter(Ebert et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. (U.S.A.) 84:5745-5749 (1987)), theoctopine synthase (OCS) promoter (which is carried on tumor-inducingplasmids of Agrobacterium tumefaciens), the caulimovirus promoters suchas the cauliflower mosaic virus (CaMV) 19S promoter (Lawton et al.,Plant Mol. Biol. 9:315-324 (1987)) and the CaMV 35S promoter (Odell etal., Nature 313:810-812 (1985)), the figwort mosaic virus 35S-promoter,the light-inducible promoter from the small subunit ofribulose-1,5-bis-phosphate carboxylase (ssRUBISCO), the Adh promoter(Walker et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. (U.S.A.) 84:6624-6628 (1987)),the sucrose synthase promoter (Yang et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci.(U.S.A.) 87:4144-4148 (1990)), the R gene complex promoter (Chandler etal., The Plant Cell 1:1175-1183 (1989)) and the chlorophyll a/b bindingprotein gene promoter, etc. These promoters have been used to create DNAconstructs that have been expressed in plants; see, e.g., PCTpublication WO 84/02913. The CaMV 35S promoters are preferred for use inplants. Promoters known or found to cause transcription of DNA in plantcells can be used in the invention.

For the purpose of expression in source tissues of the plant, such asthe leaf, seed, root or stem, it is preferred that the promotersutilized have relatively high expression in these specific tissues.Tissue-specific expression of a protein of the present invention is aparticularly preferred embodiment. For this purpose, one may choose froma number of promoters for genes with tissue- or cell-specific orenhanced expression. Examples of such promoters reported in theliterature include the chloroplast glutamine synthetase GS2 promoterfrom pea (Edwards et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. (U.S.A.) 87:3459-3463(1990)), the chloroplast fructose-1,6-biphosphatase (FBPase) promoterfrom wheat (Lloyd et al., Mol. Gen. Genet. 225:209-216 (1991)), thenuclear photosynthetic ST-LS1 promoter from potato (Stockhaus et al.,EMBO J. 8:2445-2451 (1989)), the serine/threonine kinase (PAL) promoterand the glucoamylase (CHS) promoter from Arabidopsis thaliana. Alsoreported to be active in photosynthetically active tissues are theribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase (RbcS) promoter from eastern larch(Larix laricina), the promoter for the cab gene, cab6, from pine(Yamamoto et al., Plant Cell Physiol. 35:773-778 (1994)), the promoterfor the Cab-1 gene from wheat (Fejes et al., Plant Mol. Biol. 15:921-932(1990)), the promoter for the CAB-1 gene from spinach (Lubberstedt etal., Plant Physiol. 104:997-1006 (1994)), the promoter for the cab1Rgene from rice (Luan et al., Plant Cell. 4:971-981 (1992)), thepyruvate, orthophosphate dikinase (PPDK) promoter from corn (Matsuoka etal., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. (U.S.A.) 90: 9586-9590 (1993)), the promoterfor the tobacco Lhcb1*2 gene (Cerdan et al., Plant Mol. Biol. 33:245-255(1997)), the Arabidopsis thaliana SUC2 sucrose-H+ symporter promoter(Truemit et al., Planta. 196:564-570 (1995)) and the promoter for thethylakoid membrane proteins from spinach (psaD, psaF, psaE, PC, FNR,atpC, atpD, cab, rbcS). Other promoters for the chlorophyll a/b-bindingproteins may also be utilized in the invention, such as the promotersfor LhcB gene and PsbP gene from white mustard (Sinapis alba; Kretsch etal., Plant Mol. Biol. 28:219-229 (1995)).

For the purpose of expression in sink tissues of the plant, such as thetuber of the potato plant, the fruit of tomato, or the seed of corn,wheat, rice and barley, it is preferred that the promoters utilized inthe invention have relatively high expression in these specific tissues.A number of promoters for genes with tuber-specific or tuber-enhancedexpression are known, including the class I patatin promoter (Bevan etal., EMBO J. 8:1899-1906 (1986); Jefferson et al., Plant Mol. Biol.14:995-1006 (1990)), the promoter for the potato tuber ADPGPP genes,both the large and small subunits, the sucrose synthase promoter(Salanoubat and Belliard, Gene 60:47-56 (1987), Salanoubat and Belliard,Gene 84:181-185 (1989)), the promoter for the major tuber proteinsincluding the 22 kd protein complexes and protease inhibitors (Hannapel,Plant Physiol. 101:703-704 (1993)), the promoter for the granule-boundstarch synthase gene (GBSS) (Visser et al., Plant Mol. Biol. 17:691-699(1991)) and other class I and II patatins promoters (Koster-Topfer etal., Mol. Gen. Genet. 219:390-396 (1989); Mignery et al., Gene. 62:27-44(1988)).

Other promoters can also be used to express a polypeptide in specifictissues, such as seeds or fruits. Indeed, in a preferred embodiment, thepromoter used is a seed specific promoter. Examples of such promotersinclude the 5′ regulatory regions from such genes as napin (Kridl etal., Seed Sci. Res. 1:209:219 (1991)), phaseolin (Bustos, et al., PlantCell, 1(9):839-853 (1989)), soybean trypsin inhibitor (Riggs, et al.,Plant Cell 1(6):609-621 (1989)), ACP (Baerson, et al., Plant Mol. Biol.,22(2):255-267 (1993)), stearoyl-ACP desaturase (Slocombe, et al., PlantPhysiol. 104(4):167-176 (1994)), soybean α′ subunit of β-conglycinin(soy 7s, (Chen et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., 83:8560-8564 (1986))),and oleosin (see, for example, Hong, et al., Plant Mol. Biol.,34(3):549-555 (1997)). Further examples include the promoter forβ-conglycinin (Chen et al., Dev. Genet. 10: 112-122 (1989)). Alsoincluded are the zeins, which are a group of storage proteins found incorn endosperm. Genomic clones for zein genes have been isolated(Pedersen et al., Cell 29:1015-1026 (1982), and Russell et al.,Transgenic Res. 6(2):157-168) and the promoters from these clones,including the 15 kD, 16 kD, 19 kD, 22 kD, 27 kD and genes, could also beused. Other promoters known to function, for example, in corn includethe promoters for the following genes: waxy, Brittle, Shrunken 2,Branching enzymes I and II, starch synthases, debranching enzymes,oleosins, glutelins and sucrose synthases. A particularly preferredpromoter for corn endosperm expression is the promoter for the glutelingene from rice, more particularly the Osgt-1 promoter (Zheng et al.,Mol. Cell. Biol. 13:5829-5842 (1993)). Examples of promoters suitablefor expression in wheat include those promoters for the ADP glucosepyrosynthase (ADPGPP) subunits, the granule bound and other starchsynthase, the branching and debranching enzymes, theembryogenesis-abundant proteins, the gliadins and the glutenins.Examples of such promoters in rice include those promoters for theADPGPP subunits, the granule bound and other starch synthase, thebranching enzymes, the debranching enzymes, sucrose synthases and theglutelins. A particularly preferred promoter is the promoter for riceglutelin, Osgt-1. Examples of such promoters for barley include thosefor the ADPGPP subunits, the granule bound and other starch synthase,the branching enzymes, the debranching enzymes, sucrose synthases, thehordeins, the embryo globulins and the aleurone specific proteins. Apreferred promoter for expression in the seed is a napin promoter.Another preferred promoter for expression is an Arcelin 5 promoter.

Root specific promoters may also be used. An example of such a promoteris the promoter for the acid chitinase gene (Samac et al., Plant Mol.Biol. 25:587-596 (1994)). Expression in root tissue could also beaccomplished by utilizing the root specific subdomains of the CaMV35Spromoter that have been identified (Lam et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci.(U.S.A.) 86:7890-7894 (1989)). Other root cell specific promotersinclude those reported by Conkling et al. (Conkling et al., PlantPhysiol. 93:1203-1211 (1990)).

Additional promoters that may be utilized are described, for example, inU.S. Pat. Nos. 5,378,619; 5,391,725; 5,428,147; 5,447,858; 5,608,144;5,608,144; 5,614,399; 5,633,441; 5,633,435; and 4,633,436. In addition,a tissue specific enhancer may be used (Fromm et al., The Plant Cell1:977-984 (1989)).

In a preferred embodiment of the invention, a nucleic acid moleculehaving a sequence encoding either a GMT or an MT1 enzyme is linked to aP7 or Arcelin 5 promoter. In a particularly preferred embodiment of thepresent invention, the promoter comprises a nucleic acid molecule havinga sequence selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NOs 81 and 82.In a particularly preferred embodiment, the invention relates to asoybean line 3244 plant, comprising an exogenous nucleic acid moleculecomprising a nucleic acid sequence selected of SEQ ID NO: 2, operablylinked to a nucleic acid molecule comprising a nucleotide sequenceselected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NO: 81 and 82.

Constructs or vectors may also include, with the coding region ofinterest, a nucleic acid sequence that acts, in whole or in part, toterminate transcription of that region. A number of such sequences havebeen isolated, including the Tr7 3′ sequence and the NOS 3′ sequence(Ingelbrecht et al., The Plant Cell 1:671-680 (1989); Bevan et al.,Nucleic Acids Res. 11:369-385 (1983)). Regulatory transcript terminationregions can be provided in plant expression constructs of this inventionas well. Transcript termination regions can be provided by the DNAsequence encoding the gene of interest or a convenient transcriptiontermination region derived from a different gene source, for example,the transcript termination region that is naturally associated with thetranscript initiation region. The skilled artisan will recognize thatany convenient transcript termination region that is capable ofterminating transcription in a plant cell can be employed in theconstructs of the present invention.

A vector or construct may also include regulatory elements. Examples ofsuch include the Adh intron 1 (Callis et al., Genes and Develop.1:1183-1200 (1987)), the sucrose synthase intron (Vasil et al., PlantPhysiol. 91:1575-1579 (1989)) and the TMV omega element (Gallie et al.,The Plant Cell 1:301-311 (1989)). These and other regulatory elementsmay be included when appropriate.

A vector or construct may also include a selectable marker. Selectablemarkers may also be used to select for plants or plant cells thatcontain the exogenous genetic material. Examples of such include, butare not limited to: a neo gene (Potrykus et al., Mol. Gen. Genet.199:183-188 (1985)), which codes for kanamycin resistance and can beselected for using kanamycin, RptII, G418, hpt etc.; a bar gene whichcodes for bialaphos resistance; a mutant EPSP synthase gene (Hinchee etal., Bio/Technology 6:915-922 (1988); Reynaerts et al., Selectable andScreenable Markers. In Gelvin and Schilperoort. Plant Molecular BiologyManual, Kluwer, Dordrecht (1988); Reynaerts et al., Selectable andscreenable markers. In Gelvin and Schilperoort. Plant Molecular BiologyManual, Kluwer, Dordrecht (1988)), aadA (Jones et al., Mol. Gen. Genet.(1987)),) which encodes glyphosate resistance; a nitrilase gene whichconfers resistance to bromoxynil (Stalker et al., J. Biol. Chem.263:6310-6314 (1988)); a mutant acetolactate synthase gene (ALS) whichconfers imidazolinone or sulphonylurea resistance (European PatentApplication 154,204 (Sep. 11, 1985)), ALS (D'Halluin et al.,Bio/Technology 10: 309-314 (1992)), and a methotrexate resistant DHFRgene (Thillet et al., J. Biol. Chem. 263:12500-12508 (1988)).

A vector or construct may also include a transit peptide. Incorporationof a suitable chloroplast transit peptide may also be employed (EuropeanPatent Application Publication Number 0218571). Translational enhancersmay also be incorporated as part of the vector DNA. DNA constructs couldcontain one or more 5′ non-translated leader sequences, which may serveto enhance expression of the gene products from the resulting mRNAtranscripts. Such sequences may be derived from the promoter selected toexpress the gene or can be specifically modified to increase translationof the mRNA. Such regions may also be obtained from viral RNAs, fromsuitable eukaryotic genes, or from a synthetic gene sequence. For areview of optimizing expression of transgenes, see Koziel et al., PlantMol. Biol. 32:393-405 (1996). A preferred transit peptide is CTP1.

A vector or construct may also include a screenable marker. Screenablemarkers may be used to monitor expression. Exemplary screenable markersinclude: a β-glucuronidase or uidA gene (GUS) which encodes an enzymefor which various chromogenic substrates are known (Jefferson, PlantMol. Biol, Rep. 5:387-405 (1987); Jefferson et al., EMBO J. 6:3901-3907(1987)); an R-locus gene, which encodes a product that regulates theproduction of anthocyanin pigments (red color) in plant tissues(Dellaporta et al., Stadler Symposium 11:263-282 (1988)); a β-lactamasegene (Sutcliffe et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. (U.S.A.) 75:3737-3741(1978)), a gene which encodes an enzyme for which various chromogenicsubstrates are known (e.g., PADAC, a chromogenic cephalosporin); aluciferase gene (Ow et al., Science 234:856-859 (1986)); a xy/E gene(Zukowsky et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. (U.S.A.) 80:1101-1105 (1983))which encodes a catechol dioxygenase that can convert chromogeniccatechols; an α-amylase gene (Ikatu et al., Bio/Technol. 8:241-242(1990)); a tyrosinase gene (Katz et al., J. Gen. Microbiol.129:2703-2714 (1983)) which encodes an enzyme capable of oxidizingtyrosine to DOPA and dopaquinone which in turn condenses to melanin; anα-galactosidase, which will turn a chromogenic α-galactose substrate.

Included within the terms “selectable or screenable marker genes” arealso genes that encode a secretable marker whose secretion can bedetected as a means of identifying or selecting for transformed cells.Examples include markers that encode a secretable antigen that can beidentified by antibody interaction, or even secretable enzymes that canbe detected catalytically. Secretable proteins fall into a number ofclasses, including small, diffusible proteins that are detectable,(e.g., by ELISA), small active enzymes that are detectable inextracellular solution (e.g., α-amylase, β-lactamase, phosphinothricintransferase), or proteins that are inserted or trapped in the cell wall(such as proteins that include a leader sequence such as that found inthe expression unit of extension or tobacco PR-S). Other possibleselectable and/or screenable marker genes will be apparent to those ofskill in the art.

There are many methods for introducing transforming nucleic acidmolecules into plant cells. Suitable methods are believed to includevirtually any method by which nucleic acid molecules may be introducedinto a cell, such as by Agrobacterium infection or direct delivery ofnucleic acid molecules such as, for example, by PEG-mediatedtransformation, by electroporation or by acceleration of DNA coatedparticles, and the like. (Potrykus, Ann. Rev. Plant Physiol. Plant Mol.Biol. 42:205-225 (1991); Vasil, Plant Mol. Biol. 25:925-937 (1994)). Forexample, electroporation has been used to transform corn protoplasts(Fromm et al., Nature 312:791-793 (1986)).

Other vector systems suitable for introducing transforming DNA into ahost plant cell include but are not limited to binary artificialchromosome (BIBAC) vectors (Hamilton et al., Gene 200:107-116 (1997));and transfection with RNA viral vectors (Della-Cioppa et al., Ann. N.Y.Acad. Sci. (1996), 792 (Engineering Plants for Commercial Products andApplications), 57-61). Additional vector systems also include plantselectable YAC vectors such as those described in Mullen et al.,Molecular Breeding 4:449-457 (1988).

Technology for introduction of DNA into cells is well known to those ofskill in the art. Four general methods for delivering a gene into cellshave been described: (1) chemical methods (Graham and van der Eb,Virology 54:536-539 (1973)); (2) physical methods such as microinjection(Capecchi, Cell 22:479-488 (1980)), electroporation (Wong and Neumann,Biochem. Biophys. Res. Commun. 107:584-587 (1982); Fromm et al., Proc.Natl. Acad. Sci. (U.S.A.) 82:5824-5828 (1985); U.S. Pat. No. 5,384,253);the gene gun (Johnston and Tang, Methods Cell Biol. 43:353-365 (1994));and vacuum infiltration (Bechtold et al., CR. Acad. Sci. Paris, LifeSci. 316:1194-1199. (1993)); (3) viral vectors (Clapp, Clin. Perinatol.20:155-168 (1993); Lu et al., J. Exp. Med. 178:2089-2096 (1993); Eglitisand Anderson, Biotechniques 6:608-614 (1988)); and (4) receptor-mediatedmechanisms (Curiel et al., Hum. Gen. Ther. 3:147-154 (1992), Wagner etal., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. ( USA) 89:6099-6103 (1992)).

Acceleration methods that may be used include, for example,microprojectile bombardment and the like. One example of a method fordelivering transforming nucleic acid molecules into plant cells ismicroprojectile bombardment. This method has been reviewed by Yang andChristou (eds.), Particle Bombardment Technology for Gene Transfer,Oxford Press, Oxford, England (1994)). Non-biological particles(microprojectiles) may be coated with nucleic acids and delivered intocells by a propelling force. Exemplary particles include those comprisedof tungsten, gold, platinum and the like.

A particular advantage of microprojectile bombardment, in addition to itbeing an effective means of reproducibly transforming monocots, is thatneither the isolation of protoplasts (Cristou et al., Plant Physiol.87:671-674 (1988)) nor the susceptibility to Agrobacterium infection isrequired. An illustrative embodiment of a method for delivering DNA intocorn cells by acceleration is a biolistics α-particle delivery system,which can be used to propel particles coated with DNA through a screen,such as a stainless steel or Nytex screen, onto a filter surface coveredwith corn cells cultured in suspension. Gordon-Kamm et al., describesthe basic procedure for coating tungsten particles with DNA (Gordon-Kammet al., Plant Cell 2:603-618 (1990)). The screen disperses the tungstennucleic acid particles so that they are not delivered to the recipientcells in large aggregates. A particle delivery system suitable for usewith the invention is the helium acceleration PDS-1000/He gun, which isavailable from Bio-Rad Laboratories (Bio-Rad, Hercules, Calif.)(Sanfordet al., Technique 3:3-16 (1991)).

For the bombardment, cells in suspension may be concentrated on filters.Filters containing the cells to be bombarded are positioned at anappropriate distance below the microprojectile stopping plate. Ifdesired, one or more screens are also positioned between the gun and thecells to be bombarded.

Alternatively, immature embryos or other target cells may be arranged onsolid culture medium. The cells to be bombarded are positioned at anappropriate distance below the microprojectile stopping plate. Ifdesired, one or more screens are also positioned between theacceleration device and the cells to be bombarded. Through the use oftechniques set forth herein one may obtain 1000 or more loci of cellstransiently expressing a marker gene. The number of cells in a focusthat express the exogenous gene product 48 hours post-bombardment oftenranges from one to ten, and average one to three.

In bombardment transformation, one may optimize the pre-bombardmentculturing conditions and the bombardment parameters to yield the maximumnumbers of stable transformants. Both the physical and biologicalparameters for bombardment are important in this technology. Physicalfactors are those that involve manipulating the DNA/microprojectileprecipitate or those that affect the flight and velocity of either themacro- or microprojectiles. Biological factors include all stepsinvolved in manipulation of cells before and immediately afterbombardment, the osmotic adjustment of target cells to help alleviatethe trauma associated with bombardment and also the nature of thetransforming DNA, such as linearized DNA or intact supercoiled plasmids.It is believed that pre-bombardment manipulations are especiallyimportant for successful transformation of immature embryos.

In another alternative embodiment, plastids can be stably transformed.Methods disclosed for plastid transformation in higher plants includethe particle gun delivery of DNA containing a selectable marker andtargeting of the DNA to the plastid genome through homologousrecombination (Svab et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. (U.S.A.) 87:8526-8530(1990); Svab and Maliga, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. (U.S.A.) 90:913-917(1993); Staub and Maliga, EMBO J. 12:601-606 (1993); U.S. Pat. Nos.5,451,513 and 5,545,818).

Accordingly, it is contemplated that one may wish to adjust variousaspects of the bombardment parameters in small scale studies to fullyoptimize the conditions. One may particularly wish to adjust physicalparameters such as gap distance, flight distance, tissue distance andhelium pressure. One may also minimize the trauma reduction factors bymodifying conditions that influence the physiological state of therecipient cells and which may therefore influence transformation andintegration efficiencies. For example, the osmotic state, tissuehydration and the subculture stage or cell cycle of the recipient cellsmay be adjusted for optimum transformation. The execution of otherroutine adjustments will be known to those of skill in the art in lightof the present disclosure.

Agrobacterium-mediated transfer is a widely applicable system forintroducing genes into plant cells because the DNA can be introducedinto whole plant tissues, thereby by passing the need for regenerationof an intact plant from a protoplast. The use of Agrobacterium-mediatedplant integrating vectors to introduce DNA into plant cells is wellknown in the art. See, for example the methods described by Fraley etal., Bio/Technology 3:629-635 (1985) and Rogers et al., Methods Enzymol.153:253-277 (1987). Further, the integration of the Ti-DNA is arelatively precise process resulting in few rearrangements. The regionof DNA to be transferred is defined by the border sequences andintervening DNA is usually inserted into the plant genome as described(Spielmann et al., Mol. Gen. Genet. 205:34 (1986)).

Modern Agrobacterium transformation vectors are capable of replicationin E. coli as well as Agrobacterium, allowing for convenientmanipulations as described (Klee et al., In: Plant DNA InfectiousAgents, Hohn and Schell (eds.), Springer-Verlag, New York, pp. 179-203(1985)). Moreover, technological advances in vectors forAgrobacterium-mediated gene transfer have improved the arrangement ofgenes and restriction sites in the vectors to facilitate construction ofvectors capable of expressing various polypeptide coding genes. Thevectors described have convenient multi-linker regions flanked by apromoter and a polyadenylation site for direct expression of insertedpolypeptide coding genes and are suitable for present purposes (Rogerset al., Methods Enzymol. 153:253-277 (1987)). In addition, Agrobacteriumcontaining both armed and disarmed Ti genes can be used for thetransformations. In those plant strains where Agrobacterium-mediatedtransformation is efficient, it is the method of choice because of thefacile and defined nature of the gene transfer.

A transgenic plant formed using Agrobacterium transformation methodstypically contains a single gene on one chromosome. Such transgenicplants can be referred to as being heterozygous for the added gene. Morepreferred is a transgenic plant that is homozygous for the addedstructural gene; i.e., a transgenic plant that contains two added genes,one gene at the same locus on each chromosome of a chromosome pair. Ahomozygous transgenic plant can be obtained by sexually mating (selfing)an independent segregant, transgenic plant that contains a single addedgene, germinating some of the seed produced and analyzing the resultingplants produced for the gene of interest.

It is also to be understood that two different transgenic plants canalso be mated to produce offspring that contain two independentlysegregating, exogenous genes. Selfing of appropriate progeny can produceplants that are homozygous for both added, exogenous genes that encode apolypeptide of interest. Back-crossing to a parental plant andout-crossing with a non-transgenic plant are also contemplated, as isvegetative propagation.

Transformation of plant protoplasts can be achieved using methods basedon calcium phosphate precipitation, polyethylene glycol treatment,electroporation and combinations of these treatments (See, for example,Potrykus et al., Mol. Gen. Genet. 205:193-200 (1986); Lorz et al., Mol.Gen. Genet. 199:178 (1985); Fromm et al., Nature 319:791 (1986);Uchimiya et al., Mol. Gen. Genet. 204:204 (1986); Marcotte et al.,Nature 335:454-457 (1988)).

Application of these systems to different plant strains depends upon theability to regenerate that particular plant strain from protoplasts.Illustrative methods for the regeneration of cereals from protoplastsare described (Fujimura et al., Plant Tissue Culture Letters 2:74(1985); Toriyama et al., Theor. Appl. Genet. 205:34 (1986); Yamada etal., Plant Cell Rep. 4:85 (1986); Abdullah et al., Biotechnology 4:1087(1986)).

To transform plant strains that cannot be successfully regenerated fromprotoplasts, other ways to introduce DNA into intact cells or tissuescan be utilized. For example, regeneration of cereals from immatureembryos or explants can be effected as described (Vasil, Biotechnology6:397 (1988)). In addition, “particle gun” or high-velocitymicroprojectile technology can be utilized (Vasil et al., Bio/Technology10:667 (1992)).

Using the latter technology, DNA is carried through the cell wall andinto the cytoplasm on the surface of small metal particles as described(Klein et al., Nature 328:70 (1987); Klein et al., Proc. Natl. Acad.Sci. (U.S.A.) 85:8502-8505 (1988); McCabe et al., Bio/Technology 6:923(1988)). The metal particles penetrate through several layers of cellsand thus allow the transformation of cells within tissue explants.

Other methods of cell transformation can also be used and include butare not limited to introduction of DNA into plants by direct DNAtransfer into pollen (Hess et al., Intern Rev. Cytol. 107:367 (1987);Luo et al., Plant Mol. Biol. Reporter 6:165 (1988)), by direct injectionof DNA into reproductive organs of a plant (Pena et al., Nature 325:274(1987)), or by direct injection of DNA into the cells of immatureembryos followed by the rehydration of desiccated embryos (Neuhaus etal., Theor. Appl. Genet. 75:30 (1987)).

The regeneration, development and cultivation of plants from singleplant protoplast transformants or from various transformed explants iswell known in the art (Weissbach and Weissbach, In: Methods for PlantMolecular Biology, Academic Press, San Diego, Calif., (1988)). Thisregeneration and growth process typically includes the steps ofselection of transformed cells, culturing those individualized cellsthrough the usual stages of embryonic development through the rootedplantlet stage. Transgenic embryos and seeds are similarly regenerated.The resulting transgenic rooted shoots are thereafter planted in anappropriate plant growth medium such as soil.

The development or regeneration of plants containing the foreign,exogenous gene that encodes a protein of interest is well known in theart. Preferably, the regenerated plants are self-pollinated to providehomozygous transgenic plants. Otherwise, pollen obtained from theregenerated plants is crossed to seed-grown plants of agronomicallyimportant lines. Conversely, pollen from plants of these important linesis used to pollinate regenerated plants. A transgenic plant of theinvention containing a desired polypeptide is cultivated using methodswell known to one skilled in the art.

There are a variety of methods for the regeneration of plants from planttissue. The particular method of regeneration will depend on thestarting plant tissue and the particular plant species to beregenerated.

Methods for transforming dicots, primarily by use of Agrobacteriumtumefaciens and obtaining transgenic plants have been published forcotton (U.S. Pat. No. 5,004,863; U.S. Pat. No. 5,159,135; U.S. Pat. No.5,518,908); soybean (U.S. Pat. No. 5,569,834; U.S. Pat. No. 5,416,011;McCabe et al., Biotechnology 6:923 (1988); Christou et al., PlantPhysiol. 87:671-674 (1988)); Brassica (U.S. Pat. No. 5,463,174); peanut(Cheng et al., Plant Cell Rep. 15:653-657 (1996), McKently et al., PlantCell Rep. 14:699-703 (1995)); papaya; pea (Grant et al., Plant Cell Rep.15:254-258 (1995)); and Arabidopsis thaliana (Bechtold et al., C.R.Acad. Sci. Paris, Life Sci. 316:1194-1199 (1993)). The latter method fortransforming Arabidopsis thaliana is commonly called “dipping” or vacuuminfiltration or germplasm transformation.

Transformation of monocotyledons using electroporation, particlebombardment and Agrobacterium have also been reported. Transformationand plant regeneration have been achieved in asparagus (Bytebier et al,Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. (USA) 84:5354 (1987)); barley (Wan and Lemaux,Plant Physiol 104:37 (1994)); corn (Rhodes et al., Science 240:204(1988); Gordon-Kamm et al., Plant Cell 2:603-618 (1990); Fromm et al,Bio/Technology 8:833 (1990); Koziel et al, Bio/Technology 11:194 (1993);Armstrong et al, Crop Science 35:550-557 (1995)); oat (Somers et al.,Bio/Technology 10:1589 (1992)); orchard grass (Horn et al., Plant CellRep. 7:469 (1988)); rice (Toriyama et al., Theor. Appl. Genet. 205:34(1986); Part et al, Plant Mol. Biol. 32:1135-1148 (1996); Abedinia etal, Aust. J. Plant Physiol. 24:133-141 (1997); Zhang and Wu, Theor.Appl. Genet. 76:835 (1988); Zhang et al, Plant Cell Rep. 7:379 (1988);Battraw and Hall, Plant Sci. 86:191-202 (1992); Christou et al,Bio/Technology 9:957 (1991)); rye (De la Pena et al., Nature 325:274(1987)); sugarcane (Bower and Birch, Plant J. 2:409 (1992)); tall fescue(Wang et al., Bio/Technology 10:691 (1992)) and wheat (Vasil et al.,Bio/Technology 10:667 (1992); U.S. Pat. No. 5,631,152).

Assays for gene expression based on the transient expression of clonednucleic acid constructs have been developed by introducing the nucleicacid molecules into plant cells by polyethylene glycol treatment,electroporation, or particle bombardment (Marcotte et al, Nature335:454-457 (1988); Marcotte et al, Plant Cell 1:523-532 (1989); McCartyet al, Cell 66:895-905 (1991); Hattori et al, Genes Dev. 6:609-618(1992); Goff et al, EMBO J. 9:2517-2522 (1990)). Transient expressionsystems may be used to functionally dissect gene constructs (seegenerally, Mailga et al, Methods in Plant Molecular Biology, Cold SpringHarbor Press (1995)).

Any of the nucleic acid molecules of the invention may be introducedinto a plant cell in a permanent or transient manner in combination withother genetic elements such as vectors, promoters, enhancers, etc.Further, any of the nucleic acid molecules of the invention may beintroduced into a plant cell in a manner that allows for expression oroverexpression of the protein or fragment thereof encoded by the nucleicacid molecule.

Cosuppression is the reduction in expression levels, usually at thelevel of RNA, of a particular endogenous gene or gene family by theexpression of a homologous sense construct that is capable oftranscribing mRNA of the same strandedness as the transcript of theendogenous gene (Napoli et al., Plant Cell 2:279-289 (1990); van derKrol et al., Plant Cell 2:291-299 (1990)). Cosuppression may result fromstable transformation with a single copy nucleic acid molecule that ishomologous to a nucleic acid sequence found with the cell (Prolls andMeyer, Plant J. 2:465-475 (1992)) or with multiple copies of a nucleicacid molecule that is homologous to a nucleic acid sequence found withthe cell (Mittlesten et al., Mol. Gen. Genet. 244:325-330 (1994)).Genes, even though different, linked to homologous promoters may resultin the cosuppression of the linked genes (Vaucheret, C.R. Acad. Sci. III316:1471-1483 (1993); Flavell, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. (U.S.A.)91:3490-3496 (1994)); van Blokland et al., Plant J. 6:861-877 (1994);Jorgensen, Trends Biotechnol. 8:340-344 (1990); Meins and Kunz, In: GeneInactivation and Homologous Recombination in Plants, Paszkowski (ed.),pp. 335-348, Kluwer Academic, Netherlands (1994)).

It is understood that one or more of the nucleic acids of the inventionmay be introduced into a plant cell and transcribed using an appropriatepromoter with such transcription resulting in the cosuppression of anendogenous protein.

Antisense approaches are a way of preventing or reducing gene functionby targeting the genetic material (Mol et al., FEBS Lett. 268:427-430(1990)). The objective of the antisense approach is to use a sequencecomplementary to the target gene to block its expression and create amutant cell line or organism in which the level of a single chosenprotein is selectively reduced or abolished. Antisense techniques haveseveral advantages over other ‘reverse genetic’ approaches. The site ofinactivation and its developmental effect can be manipulated by thechoice of promoter for antisense genes or by the timing of externalapplication or microinjection can manipulate its specificity byselecting either unique regions of the target gene or regions where itshares homology to other related genes (Hiatt et al., In: GeneticEngineering, Setlow (ed.), Vol. 11, New York: Plenum 49-63 (1989)).

Antisense RNA techniques involve introduction of RNA that iscomplementary to the target mRNA into cells, which results in specificRNA:RNA duplexes being formed by base pairing between the antisensesubstrate and the target mRNA (Green et al., Annu. Rev. Biochem.55:569-597 (1986)). Under one embodiment, the process involves theintroduction and expression of an antisense gene sequence. Such asequence is one in which part or all of the normal gene sequences areplaced under a promoter in inverted orientation so that the ‘wrong’ orcomplementary strand is transcribed into a noncoding antisense RNA thathybridizes with the target mRNA and interferes with its expression(Takayama and Inouye, Crit. Rev. Biochem. Mol. Biol. 25:155-184 (1990)).An antisense vector is constructed by standard procedures and introducedinto cells by transformation, transfection, electroporation,microinjection, infection, etc. The type of transformation and choice ofvector will determine whether expression is transient or stable. Thepromoter used for the antisense gene may influence the level, timing,tissue, specificity, or inducibility of the antisense inhibition.

It is understood that the activity of a protein in a plant cell may bereduced or depressed by growing a transformed plant cell containing anucleic acid molecule whose non-transcribed strand encodes a protein orfragment thereof. Preferred proteins whose activity can be reduced ordepressed, by any method, are MT1 and homogenistic acid dehydrogenase.In such an embodiment of the invention, it is preferred that theconcentration of γ-tocopherol or γ-tocotrienol is increased.

Posttranscriptional gene silencing (PTGS) can result in virus immunityor gene silencing in plants. PTGS is induced by dsRNA and is mediated byan RNA-dependent RNA polymerase, present in the cytoplasm, whichrequires a dsRNA template. The dsRNA is formed by hybridization ofcomplementary transgene mRNAs or complementary regions of the sametranscript. Duplex formation can be accomplished by using transcriptsfrom one sense gene and one antisense gene colocated in the plantgenome, a single transcript that has self-complementarity, or sense andantisense transcripts from genes brought together by crossing. ThedsRNA-dependent RNA polymerase makes a complementary strand from thetransgene mRNA and RNAse molecules attach to this complementary strand(cRNA). These cRNA-RNase molecules hybridize to the endogene mRNA andcleave the single-stranded RNA adjacent to the hybrid. The cleavedsingle-stranded RNAs are further degraded by other host RNases becauseone will lack a capped 5′ end and the other will lack a poly(A) tail(Waterhouse et al., PNAS 95: 13959-13964 (1998)).

It is understood that one or more of the nucleic acids of the inventionmay be introduced into a plant cell and transcribed using an appropriatepromoter with such transcription resulting in the post transcriptionalgene silencing of an endogenous transcript.

Antibodies have been expressed in plants (Hiatt et al., Nature 342:76-78(1989); Conrad and Fielder, Plant Mol. Biol. 26:1023-1030 (1994)).Cytoplasmic expression of a scFv (single-chain Fv antibody) has beenreported to delay infection by artichoke mottled crinkle virus.Transgenic plants that express antibodies directed against endogenousproteins may exhibit a physiological effect (Philips et al., EMBO J.16:4489-4496 (1997); Marion-Poll, Trends in Plant Science 2:447-448(1997)). For example, expressed anti-abscisic antibodies have beenreported to result in a general perturbation of seed development(Philips et al., EMBO J. 16: 4489-4496 (1997)).

Antibodies that are catalytic may also be expressed in plants (abzymes).The principle behind abzymes is that since antibodies may be raisedagainst many molecules, this recognition ability can be directed towardgenerating antibodies that bind transition states to force a chemicalreaction forward (Persidas, Nature Biotechnology 15:1313-1315 (1997);Baca et al., Ann. Rev. Biophys. Biomol. Struct. 26:461-493 (1997)). Thecatalytic abilities of abzymes may be enhanced by site directedmutagenesis. Examples of abzymes are, for example, set forth in U.S.Pat. Nos. 5,658,753; 5,632,990; 5,631,137; 5,602,015; 5,559,538;5,576,174; 5,500,358; 5,318,897; 5,298,409; 5,258,289 and 5,194,585.

It is understood that any of the antibodies of the invention may beexpressed in plants and that such expression can result in aphysiological effect. It is also understood that any of the expressedantibodies may be catalytic.

The present invention also provides for parts of the plants,particularly reproductive or storage parts, of the present invention.Plant parts, without limitation, include seed, endosperm, ovule andpollen. In a particularly preferred embodiment of the present invention,the plant part is a seed. In one embodiment the seed is a constituent ofanimal feed.

In another embodiment, the plant part is a fruit, more preferably afruit with enhanced shelf life. In another preferred embodiment, thefruit has increased levels of a tocopherol. In another preferredembodiment, the fruit has increased levels of a tocotrienol.

The present invention also provides a container of over about 10,000,more preferably about 20,000, and even more preferably about 40,000seeds where over about 10%, more preferably about 25%, more preferablyabout 50% and even more preferably about 75% or 90% of the seeds areseeds derived from a plant of the present invention.

The present invention also provides a container of over about 10 kg,more preferably about 25 kg, and even more preferably about 50 kg seedswhere over about 10%, more preferably about 25%, more preferably about50% and even more preferably about 75% or 90% of the seeds are seedsderived from a plant of the present invention.

Any of the plants or parts thereof of the present invention may beprocessed to produce a feed, meal, protein or oil preparation. Aparticularly preferred plant part for this purpose is a seed. In apreferred embodiment the feed, meal, protein or oil preparation isdesigned for ruminant animals. Methods to produce feed, meal, proteinand oil preparations are known in the art. See, for example, U.S. Pat.Nos. 4,957,748, 5,100,679, 5,219,596, 5,936,069, 6,005,076, 6,146,669,and 6,156,227. In a preferred embodiment, the protein preparation is ahigh protein preparation. Such a high protein preparation preferably hasa protein content of greater than 5% w/v, more preferably 10% w/v, andeven more preferably 15% w/v. In a preferred oil preparation, the oilpreparation is a high oil preparation with an oil content derived from aplant or part thereof of the present invention of greater than 5% w/v,more preferably 10% w/v, and even more preferably 15% w/v. In apreferred embodiment the oil preparation is a liquid and of a volumegreater than 1, 5, 10 or 50 liters. The present invention provides foroil produced from plants of the present invention or generated by amethod of the present invention. Such an oil may exhibit enhancedoxidative stability. Also, such oil may be a minor or major component ofany resultant product. Moreover, such oil may be blended with otheroils. In a preferred embodiment, the oil produced from plants of thepresent invention or generated by a method of the present inventionconstitutes greater than 0.5%, 1%, 5%, 10%, 25%, 50%, 75% or 90% byvolume or weight of the oil component of any product. In anotherembodiment, the oil preparation may be blended and can constitutegreater than 10%, 25%, 35%, 50% or 75% of the blend by volume. Oilproduced from a plant of the present invention can be admixed with oneor more organic solvents or petroleum distillates.

Plants of the present invention can be part of or generated from abreeding program. The choice of breeding method depends on the mode ofplant reproduction, the heritability of the trait(s) being improved, andthe type of cultivar used commercially (e.g., F₁ hybrid cultivar,pureline cultivar, etc). Selected, non-limiting approaches, for breedingthe plants of the present invention are set forth below. A breedingprogram can be enhanced using marker assisted selection of the progenyof any cross. It is further understood that any commercial andnon-commercial cultivars can be utilized in a breeding program. Factorssuch as, for example, emergence vigor, vegetative vigor, stresstolerance, disease resistance, branching, flowering, seed set, seedsize, seed density, standability, and threshability etc. will generallydictate the choice.

For highly heritable traits, a choice of superior individual plantsevaluated at a single location will be effective, whereas for traitswith low heritability, selection should be based on mean values obtainedfrom replicated evaluations of families of related plants. Popularselection methods commonly include pedigree selection, modified pedigreeselection, mass selection, and recurrent selection. In a preferredembodiment a backcross or recurrent breeding program is undertaken.

The complexity of inheritance influences choice of the breeding method.Backcross breeding can be used to transfer one or a few favorable genesfor a highly heritable trait into a desirable cultivar. This approachhas been used extensively for breeding disease-resistant cultivars.Various recurrent selection techniques are used to improvequantitatively inherited traits controlled by numerous genes. The use ofrecurrent selection in self-pollinating crops depends on the ease ofpollination, the frequency of successful hybrids from each pollination,and the number of hybrid offspring from each successful cross.

Breeding lines can be tested and compared to appropriate standards inenvironments representative of the commercial target area(s) for two ormore generations. The best lines are candidates for new commercialcultivars; those still deficient in traits may be used as parents toproduce new populations for further selection.

One method of identifying a superior plant is to observe its performancerelative to other experimental plants and to a widely grown standardcultivar. If a single observation is inconclusive, replicatedobservations can provide a better estimate of its genetic worth. Abreeder can select and cross two or more parental lines, followed byrepeated selfing and selection, producing many new genetic combinations.

The development of new cultivars requires the development and selectionof varieties, the crossing of these varieties and the selection ofsuperior hybrid crosses. The hybrid seed can be produced by manualcrosses between selected male-fertile parents or by using male sterilitysystems. Hybrids are selected for certain single gene traits such as podcolor, flower color, seed yield, pubescence color, or herbicideresistance, which indicate that the seed is truly a hybrid. Additionaldata on parental lines, as well as the phenotype of the hybrid,influence the breeder's decision whether to continue with the specifichybrid cross.

Pedigree breeding and recurrent selection breeding methods can be usedto develop cultivars from breeding populations. Breeding programscombine desirable traits from two or more cultivars or variousbroad-based sources into breeding pools from which cultivars aredeveloped by selfing and selection of desired phenotypes. New cultivarscan be evaluated to determine which have commercial potential.

Pedigree breeding is used commonly for the improvement ofself-pollinating crops. Two parents who possess favorable, complementarytraits are crossed to produce an F₁. A F₂ population is produced byselfing one or several F₁'s Selection of the best individuals from thebest families is carried out. Replicated testing of families can beginin the F₄ generation to improve the effectiveness of selection fortraits with low heritability. At an advanced stage of inbreeding (i.e.,F₆ and F₇), the best lines or mixtures of phenotypically similar linesare tested for potential release as new cultivars.

Backcross breeding has been used to transfer genes for a simplyinherited, highly heritable trait into a desirable homozygous cultivaror inbred line, which is the recurrent parent. The source of the traitto be transferred is called the donor parent. The resulting plant isexpected to have the attributes of the recurrent parent (e.g. cultivar)and the desirable trait transferred from the donor parent. After theinitial cross, individuals possessing the phenotype of the donor parentare selected and repeatedly crossed (backcrossed) to the recurrentparent. The resulting parent is expected to have the attributes of therecurrent parent (e.g., cultivar) and the desirable trait transferredfrom the donor parent.

The single-seed descent procedure in the strict sense refers to plantinga segregating population, harvesting a sample of one seed per plant, andusing the one-seed sample to plant the next generation. When thepopulation has been advanced from the F₂ to the desired level ofinbreeding, the plants from which lines are derived will each trace todifferent F₂ individuals. The number of plants in a population declineseach generation due to failure of some seeds to germinate or some plantsto produce at least one seed. As a result, not all of the F₂ plantsoriginally sampled in the population will be represented by a progenywhen generation advance is completed.

In a multiple-seed procedure, breeders commonly harvest one or more podsfrom each plant in a population and thresh them together to form a bulk.Part of the bulk is used to plant the next generation and part is put inreserve. The procedure has been referred to as modified single-seeddescent or the pod-bulk technique.

The multiple-seed procedure has been used to save labor at harvest. Itis considerably faster to thresh pods with a machine than to remove oneseed from each by hand for the single-seed procedure. The multiple-seedprocedure also makes it possible to plant the same number of seed of apopulation each generation of inbreeding.

Descriptions of other breeding methods that are commonly used fordifferent traits and crops can be found in one of several referencebooks (e.g. Fehr, Principles of Cultivar Development Vol. 1, pp. 2-3(1987))).

A transgenic plant of the present invention may also be reproduced usingapomixis. Apomixis is a genetically controlled method of reproduction inplants where the embryo is formed without union of an egg and a sperm.There are three basic types of apomictic reproduction: 1) apospory wherethe embryo develops from a chromosomally unreduced egg in an embryo sacderived from the nucleus, 2) diplospory where the embryo develops froman unreduced egg in an embryo sac derived from the megaspore mothercell, and 3) adventitious embryony where the embryo develops directlyfrom a somatic cell. In most forms of apomixis, pseudogamy orfertilization of the polar nuclei to produce endosperm is necessary forseed viability. In apospory, a nurse cultivar can be used as a pollensource for endosperm formation in seeds. The nurse cultivar does notaffect the genetics of the aposporous apomictic cultivar since theunreduced egg of the cultivar develops parthenogenetically, but makespossible endosperm production. Apomixis is economically important,especially in transgenic plants, because it causes any genotype, nomatter how heterozygous, to breed true. Thus, with apomicticreproduction, heterozygous transgenic plants can maintain their geneticfidelity throughout repeated life cycles. Methods for the production ofapomictic known in the art. See, U.S. Pat. No. 5,811,636.

Other Organisms

A nucleic acid of the present invention may be introduced into any cellor organism such as a mammalian cell, mammal, fish cell, fish, birdcell, bird, algae cell, algae, fungal cell, fungi, or bacterial cell. Aprotein of the present invention may be produced in an appropriate cellor organism. Preferred host and transformants include: fungal cells suchas Aspergillus, yeasts, mammals, particularly bovine and porcine,insects, bacteria, and algae. Particularly preferred bacteria areagrobacterium tumefaciens and E. coli.

Methods to transform such cells or organisms are known in the art (EP 0238 023; Yelton et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. (U.S.A.), 81:1470-1474(1984); Malardier et al., Gene, 78:147-156 (1989); Becker and Guarente,In: Abelson and Simon (eds.), Guide to Yeast Genetics and MolecularBiology, Method Enzymol., Vol. 194, pp. 182-187, Academic Press, Inc.,New York; Ito et al., J. Bacteriology, 153:163 (1983) Hinnen et al.,Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. (U.S.A.), 75:1920 (1978); Bennett and LaSure(eds.), More Gene Manipulation in fungi, Academic Press, CA (1991)).Methods to produce proteins of the present invention are also known(Kudla et al., EMBO, 9:1355-1364 (1990); Jarai and Buxton, CurrentGenetics, 26:2238-2244 (1994); Verdier, Yeast, 6:271-297 (1990;MacKenzie et al., Journal of Gen. Microbiol., 139:2295-2307 (1993);Hartl et al., TIBS, 19:20-25 (1994); Bergenron et al., TIBS, 19:124-128(1994); Demolder et al., J. Biotechnology, 32:179-189 (1994); Craig,Science, 260:1902-1903 (1993); Gething and Sambrook, Nature, 355:33-45(1992); Puig and Gilbert, J. Biol. Chem., 269:7764-7771 (1994); Wang andTsou, FASEB Journal, 7:1515-1517 (1993); Robinson et al.,Bio/Technology, 1:381-384 (1994); Enderlin and Ogrydziak, Yeast,10:67-79 (1994); Fuller et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. (U.S.A.),86:1434-1438 (1989); Julius et al., Cell, 37:1075-1089 (1984); Julius etal., Cell 32:839-852 (1983).

In a preferred embodiment, overexpression of a protein or fragmentthereof of the present invention in a cell or organism provides in thatcell or organism, relative to an untransformed cell or organism with asimilar genetic background, an increased level of tocopherols.

In a preferred embodiment, overexpression of a protein or fragmentthereof of the present invention in a cell or organism provides in thatcell or organism, relative to an untransformed cell or organism with asimilar genetic background, an increased level of α-tocopherols.

In a preferred embodiment, overexpression of a protein or fragmentthereof of the present invention in a cell or organism provides in thatcell or organism, relative to an untransformed cell or organism with asimilar genetic background, an increased level of γ-tocopherols.

In another preferred embodiment, overexpression of a protein or fragmentthereof of the present invention in a cell or organism provides in thatcell or organism, relative to an untransformed cell or organism with asimilar genetic background, an increased level of α-tocotrienols.

In another preferred embodiment, overexpression of a protein or fragmentthereof of the present invention in a cell or organism provides in thatcell or organism, relative to an untransformed cell or organism with asimilar genetic background, an increased level of γ-tocotrienols.

Antibodies

One aspect of the invention concerns antibodies, single-chain antigenbinding molecules, or other proteins that specifically bind to one ormore of the protein or peptide molecules of the invention and theirhomologs, fusions or fragments. In a particularly preferred embodiment,the antibody specifically binds to a protein having the amino acidsequence set forth in SEQ ID NOs: 19-31, 33-38, 39-41, and 46-49 or afragment thereof. In another embodiment, the antibody specifically bindsto a fusion protein comprising an amino acid sequence selected from theamino acid sequence set forth in SEQ ID NOs: 19-33 and 33-38 or afragment thereof. In another embodiment the antibody specifically bindsto a fusion protein comprising an amino acid sequence selected from theamino acid sequence set forth in SEQ ID NOs: 46-49 or a fragmentthereof. Antibodies of the invention may be used to quantitatively orqualitatively detect the protein or peptide molecules of the invention,or to detect post translational modifications of the proteins. As usedherein, an antibody or peptide is said to “specifically bind” to aprotein or peptide molecule of the invention if such binding is notcompetitively inhibited by the presence of non-related molecules.

Nucleic acid molecules that encode all or part of the protein of theinvention can be expressed, via recombinant means, to yield protein orpeptides that can in turn be used to elicit antibodies that are capableof binding the expressed protein or peptide. Such antibodies may be usedin immunoassays for that protein. Such protein-encoding molecules, ortheir fragments may be a “fusion” molecule (i.e., a part of a largernucleic acid molecule) such that, upon expression, a fusion protein isproduced. It is understood that any of the nucleic acid molecules of theinvention may be expressed, via recombinant means, to yield proteins orpeptides encoded by these nucleic acid molecules.

The antibodies that specifically bind proteins and protein fragments ofthe invention may be polyclonal or monoclonal and may comprise intactimmunoglobulins, or antigen binding portions of immunoglobulinsfragments (such as (F(ab′), F(ab′)₂), or single-chain immunoglobulinsproducible, for example, via recombinant means. It is understood thatpractitioners are familiar with the standard resource materials thatdescribe specific conditions and procedures for the construction,manipulation and isolation of antibodies (see, for example, Harlow andLane, In: Antibodies: A Laboratory Manual, Cold Spring Harbor Press,Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y. (1988)).

As discussed below, such antibody molecules or their fragments may beused for diagnostic purposes. Where the antibodies are intended fordiagnostic purposes, it may be desirable to derivatize them, for examplewith a ligand group (such as biotin) or a detectable marker group (suchas a fluorescent group, a radioisotope or an enzyme).

The ability to produce antibodies that bind the protein or peptidemolecules of the invention permits the identification of mimeticcompounds derived from those molecules. These mimetic compounds maycontain a fragment of the protein or peptide or merely a structurallysimilar region and nonetheless exhibits an ability to specifically bindto antibodies directed against that compound.

Exemplary Uses

Nucleic acid molecules and fragments thereof of the invention may beemployed to obtain other nucleic acid molecules from the same species(nucleic acid molecules from corn may be utilized to obtain othernucleic acid molecules from corn). Such nucleic acid molecules includethe nucleic acid molecules that encode the complete coding sequence of aprotein and promoters and flanking sequences of such molecules. Inaddition, such nucleic acid molecules include nucleic acid moleculesthat encode for other isozymes or gene family members. Such moleculescan be readily obtained by using the above-described nucleic acidmolecules or fragments thereof to screen cDNA or genomic libraries.Methods for forming such libraries are well known in the art.

Nucleic acid molecules and fragments thereof of the invention may alsobe employed to obtain nucleic acid homologs. Such homologs include thenucleic acid molecules of plants and other organisms, including bacteriaand fungi, including the nucleic acid molecules that encode, in whole orin part, protein homologues of other plant species or other organisms,sequences of genetic elements, such as promoters and transcriptionalregulatory elements. Such molecules can be readily obtained by using theabove-described nucleic acid molecules or fragments thereof to screencDNA or genomic libraries obtained from such plant species. Methods forforming such libraries are well known in the art. Such homolog moleculesmay differ in their nucleotide sequences from those found in one or moreof SEQ ID NOs: 2-17, 50, and 85 and complements thereof because completecomplementarity is not needed for stable hybridization. The nucleic acidmolecules of the invention therefore also include molecules that,although capable of specifically hybridizing with the nucleic acidmolecules may lack “complete complementarity.”

Any of a variety of methods may be used to obtain one or more of theabove-described nucleic acid molecules (Zamechik et al., Proc. Natl.Acad. Sci. (U.S.A.) 83:4143-4146 (1986); Goodchild et al., Proc. Natl.Acad. Sci. (U.S.A .) 85:5507-5511 (1988); Wickstrom et al., Proc. Natl.Acad. Sci. (U.S.A.) 85:1028-1032 (1988); Holt et al., Molec. Cell. Biol.8:963-973 (1988); Gerwirtz et al., Science 242:1303-1306 (1988); Anfossiet al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. (U.S.A.) 86:3379-3383 (1989); Becker etal., EMBO J. 8:3685-3691 (1989)). Automated nucleic acid synthesizersmay be employed for this purpose. In lieu of such synthesis, thedisclosed nucleic acid molecules may be used to define a pair of primersthat can be used with the polymerase chain reaction (Mullis et al., ColdSpring Harbor Symp. Quant. Biol. 51:263-273 (1986); Erlich et al.,European Patent 50,424; European Patent 84,796; European Patent 258,017;European Patent 237,362; Mullis, European Patent 201,184; Mullis et al.,U.S. Pat. No. 4,683,202; Erlich, U.S. Pat. No. 4,582,788; and Saiki etal., U.S. Pat. No. 4,683,194) to amplify and obtain any desired nucleicacid molecule or fragment.

Promoter sequences and other genetic elements, including but not limitedto transcriptional regulatory flanking sequences, associated with one ormore of the disclosed nucleic acid sequences can also be obtained usingthe disclosed nucleic acid sequence provided herein. In one embodiment,such sequences are obtained by incubating nucleic acid molecules of thepresent invention with members of genomic libraries and recoveringclones that hybridize to such nucleic acid molecules thereof. In asecond embodiment, methods of “chromosome walking,” or inverse PCR maybe used to obtain such sequences (Frohman et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci.(U.S.A.) 85:8998-9002 (1988); Ohara et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci.(U.S.A.) 86:5673-5677 (1989); Pang et al., Biotechniques 22:1046-1048(1977); Huang et al., Methods Mol. Biol. 69:89-96 (1997); Huang et al.,Method Mol. Biol. 67:287-294 (1997); Benkel et al., Genet. Anal.13:123-127 (1996); Hartl et al., Methods Mol. Biol. 58:293-301 (1996)).The term “chromosome walking” means a process of extending a genetic mapby successive hybridization steps.

The nucleic acid molecules of the invention may be used to isolatepromoters of cell enhanced, cell specific, tissue enhanced, tissuespecific, developmentally or environmentally regulated expressionprofiles. Isolation and functional analysis of the 5′ flanking promotersequences of these genes from genomic libraries, for example, usinggenomic screening methods and PCR techniques would result in theisolation of useful promoters and transcriptional regulatory elements.These methods are known to those of skill in the art and have beendescribed (See, for example, Birren et al., Genome Analysis: AnalyzingDNA, 1, (1997), Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, Cold Spring Harbor,N.Y.). Promoters obtained utilizing the nucleic acid molecules of theinvention could also be modified to affect their controlcharacteristics. Examples of such modifications would include but arenot limited to enhancer sequences. Such genetic elements could be usedto enhance gene expression of new and existing traits for cropimprovement.

Another subset of the nucleic acid molecules of the invention includesnucleic acid molecules that are markers. The markers can be used in anumber of conventional ways in the field of molecular genetics. Suchmarkers include nucleic acid molecules SEQ ID NOs: 2-17, 50, and 85,complements thereof, and fragments of either that can act as markers andother nucleic acid molecules of the present invention that can act asmarkers.

Genetic markers of the invention include “dominant” or “codominant”markers. “Codominant markers” reveal the presence of two or more alleles(two per diploid individual) at a locus. “Dominant markers” reveal thepresence of only a single allele per locus. The presence of the dominantmarker phenotype (e.g., a band of DNA) is an indication that one alleleis in either the homozygous or heterozygous condition. The absence ofthe dominant marker phenotype (e.g., absence of a DNA band) is merelyevidence that “some other” undefined allele is present. In the case ofpopulations where individuals are predominantly homozygous and loci arepredominately dimorphic, dominant and codominant markers can be equallyvaluable. As populations become more heterozygous and multi-allelic,codominant markers often become more informative of the genotype thandominant markers. Marker molecules can be, for example, capable ofdetecting polymorphisms such as single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs).

The genomes of animals and plants naturally undergo spontaneous mutationin the course of their continuing evolution (Gusella, Ann. Rev. Biochem.55:831-854 (1986)). A “polymorphism” is a variation or difference in thesequence of the gene or its flanking regions that arises in some of themembers of a species. The variant sequence and the “original” sequenceco-exist in the species' population. In some instances, suchco-existence is in stable or quasi-stable equilibrium.

A polymorphism is thus said to be “allelic,” in that, due to theexistence of the polymorphism, some members of a population may have theoriginal sequence (i.e., the original “allele”) whereas other membersmay have the variant sequence (i.e., the variant “allele”). In thesimplest case, only one variant sequence may exist and the polymorphismis thus said to be di-allelic. In other cases, the species' populationmay contain multiple alleles and the polymorphism is termed tri-allelic,etc. A single gene may have multiple different unrelated polymorphisms.For example, it may have a di-allelic polymorphism at one site and amulti-allelic polymorphism at another site.

The variation that defines the polymorphism may range from a singlenucleotide variation to the insertion or deletion of extended regionswithin a gene. In some cases, the DNA sequence variations are in regionsof the genome that are characterized by short tandem repeats (STRs) thatinclude tandem di- or tri-nucleotide repeated motifs of nucleotides.Polymorphisms characterized by such tandem repeats are referred to as“variable number tandem repeat” (“VNTR”) polymorphisms. VNTRs have beenused in identity analysis (Weber, U.S. Pat. No. 5,075,217; Armour etal., FEBS Lett. 307:113-115 (1992); Jones et al., Eur. J. Haematol.39:144-147 (1987); Horn et al., PCT Patent Application WO 91/14003;Jeffreys, European Patent Application 370,719; Jeffreys, U.S. Pat. No.5,175,082; Jeffreys et al., Amer. J. Hum. Genet. 39:11-24 (1986);Jeffreys et al., Nature 316:76-79 (1985); Gray et al., Proc. R. Acad.Soc. Lond. 243:241-253 (1991); Moore et al., Genomics 10:654-660 (1991);Jeffreys et al., Anim. Genet. 18:1-15 (1987); Hillel et al., Anim.Genet. 20:145-155 (1989); Hillel et al., Genet. 124:783-789 (1990)).

The detection of polymorphic sites in a sample of DNA may be facilitatedthrough the use of nucleic acid amplification methods. Such methodsspecifically increase the concentration of polynucleotides that span thepolymorphic site, or include that site and sequences located eitherdistal or proximal to it. Such amplified molecules can be readilydetected by gel electrophoresis or other means.

In an alternative embodiment, such polymorphisms can be detected throughthe use of a marker nucleic acid molecule that is physically linked tosuch polymorphism(s). For this purpose, marker nucleic acid moleculescomprising a nucleotide sequence of a polynucleotide located within 1 mbof the polymorphism(s) and more preferably within 100 kb of thepolymorphism(s) and most preferably within 10 kb of the polymorphism(s)can be employed.

The identification of a polymorphism can be determined in a variety ofways. By correlating the presence or absence of it in a plant with thepresence or absence of a phenotype, it is possible to predict thephenotype of that plant. If a polymorphism creates or destroys arestriction endonuclease cleavage site, or if it results in the loss orinsertion of DNA (e.g., a VNTR polymorphism), it will alter the size orprofile of the DNA fragments that are generated by digestion with thatrestriction endonuclease. As such, organisms that possess a variantsequence can be distinguished from those having the original sequence byrestriction fragment analysis. Polymorphisms that can be identified inthis manner are termed “restriction fragment length polymorphisms”(“RFLPs”) (Glassberg, UK Patent Application 2135774; Skolnick et al.,Cytogen. Cell Genet. 32:58-67 (1982); Botstein et al., Ann. J. Hum.Genet. 32:314-331 (1980); Fischer et al., (PCT Application WO 90/13668;Uhlen, PCT Application WO 90/11369).

Polymorphisms can also be identified by Single Strand ConformationPolymorphism (SSCP) analysis (Elles, Methods in Molecular Medicine:Molecular Diagnosis of Genetic Diseases, Humana Press (1996)); Orita etal., Genomics 5:874-879 (1989)). A number of protocols have beendescribed for SSCP including, but not limited to, Lee et al., Anal.Biochem. 205:289-293 (1992); Suzuki et al., Anal. Biochem. 192:82-84(1991); Lo et al., Nucleic Acids Research 20:1005-1009 (1992); Sarkar etal., Genomics 13:441-443 (1992). It is understood that one or more ofthe nucleic acids of the invention, may be utilized as markers or probesto detect polymorphisms by SSCP analysis.

Polymorphisms may also be found using a DNA fingerprinting techniquecalled amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP), which is based onthe selective PCR amplification of restriction fragments from a totaldigest of genomic DNA to profile that DNA (Vos et al., Nucleic AcidsRes. 23:4407-4414 (1995)). This method allows for the specificco-amplification of high numbers of restriction fragments, which can bevisualized by PCR without knowledge of the nucleic acid sequence. It isunderstood that one or more of the nucleic acids of the invention may beutilized as markers or probes to detect polymorphisms by AFLP analysisor for fingerprinting RNA.

Polymorphisms may also be found using random amplified polymorphic DNA(RAPD) (Williams et al., Nucl. Acids Res. 18:6531-6535 (1990)) andcleavable amplified polymorphic sequences (CAPS) (Lyamichev et al.,Science 260:778-783 (1993)). It is understood that one or more of thenucleic acid molecules of the invention, may be utilized as markers orprobes to detect polymorphisms by RAPD or CAPS analysis.

Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) generally occur at greaterfrequency than other polymorphic markers and are spaced with a greateruniformity throughout a genome than other reported forms ofpolymorphism. The greater frequency and uniformity of SNPs means thatthere is greater probability that such a polymorphism will be found nearor in a genetic locus of interest than would be the case for otherpolymorphisms. SNPs are located in protein-coding regions and noncodingregions of a genome. Some of these SNPs may result in defective orvariant protein expression (e.g., as a result of mutations or defectivesplicing). Analysis (genotyping) of characterized SNPs can require onlya plus/minus assay rather than a lengthy measurement, permitting easierautomation.

SNPs can be characterized using any of a variety of methods. Suchmethods include the direct or indirect sequencing of the site, the useof restriction enzymes (Botstein et al., Am. J. Hum. Genet. 32:314-331(1980); Konieczny and Ausubel, Plant J. 4:403-410 (1993)), enzymatic andchemical mismatch assays (Myers et al., Nature 313:495-498 (1985)),allele-specific PCR (Newton et al., Nucl. Acids Res. 17:2503-2516(1989); Wu et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 86:2757-2760 (1989)),ligase chain reaction (Barany, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 88:189-193(1991)), single-strand conformation polymorphism analysis (Labrune etal., Am. J. Hum. Genet. 48: 1115-1120 (1991)), single base primerextension (Kuppuswamy et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 88:1143-1147(1991)), Goelet U.S. Pat. No. 6,004,744; Goelet U.S. Pat. No.5,888,819), solid-phase ELISA-based oligonucleotide ligation assays(Nikiforov et al., Nucl. Acids Res. 22:4167-4175 (1994), dideoxyfingerprinting (Sarkar et al., Genomics 13:441-443 (1992)),oligonucleotide fluorescence-quenching assays (Livak et al., PCR MethodsAppl. 4:357-362 (1995a)), 5′-nuclease allele-specific hybridizationTaqMan™ assay (Livak et al., Nature Genet. 9:341-342 (1995)),template-directed dye-terminator incorporation (TDI) assay (Chen andKwok, Nucl. Acids Res. 25:347-353 (1997)), allele-specific molecularbeacon assay (Tyagi et al., Nature Biotech. 16: 49-53 (1998)), PinPointassay (Haff and Smirnov, Genome Res. 7: 378-388 (1997)), dCAPS analysis(Neff et al., Plant J. 14:387-392 (1998)), pyrosequencing (Ronaghi etal, Analytical Biochemistry 267:65-71 (1999); Ronaghi et al PCTapplication WO 98/13523; Nyren et al PCT application WO 98/28440;www.pyrosequencing.com), using mass spectrometry, e.g. the Masscode™system (Howbert et al PCT application, WO 99/05319; Howbert et al PCTapplication WO 97/27331; www.rapigene.com; Becker et al PCT applicationWO 98/26095; Becker et al PCT application; WO 98/12355; Becker et al PCTapplication WO 97/33000; Monforte et al U.S. Pat. No. 5,965,363),invasive cleavage of oligonucleotide probes (Lyamichev et al NatureBiotechnology 17:292-296; www.twt.com), and using high densityoligonucleotide arrays (Hacia et al Nature Genetics 22:164-167;www.affymetrix.com).

Polymorphisms may also be detected using allele-specificoligonucleotides (ASO), which, can be for example, used in combinationwith hybridization based technology including southern, northern, anddot blot hybridizations, reverse dot blot hybridizations andhybridizations performed on microarray and related technology.

The stringency of hybridization for polymorphism detection is highlydependent upon a variety of factors, including length of theallele-specific oligonucleotide, sequence composition, degree ofcomplementarity (i.e. presence or absence of base mismatches),concentration of salts and other factors such as formamide, andtemperature. These factors are important both during the hybridizationitself and during subsequent washes performed to remove targetpolynucleotide that is not specifically hybridized. In practice, theconditions of the final, most stringent wash are most critical. Inaddition, the amount of target polynucleotide that is able to hybridizeto the allele-specific oligonucleotide is also governed by such factorsas the concentration of both the ASO and the target polynucleotide, thepresence and concentration of factors that act to “tie up” watermolecules, so as to effectively concentrate the reagents (e.g., PEG,dextran, dextran sulfate, etc.), whether the nucleic acids areimmobilized or in solution, and the duration of hybridization andwashing steps.

Hybridizations are preferably performed below the melting temperature(T_(m)) of the ASO. The closer the hybridization and/or washing step isto the T_(m), the higher the stringency. T_(m) for an oligonucleotidemay be approximated, for example, according to the following formula:T_(m)=81.5+16.6×(log 10[Na+])+0.41×(% G+C)−675/n; where [Na+] is themolar salt concentration of Na+ or any other suitable cation andn=number of bases in the oligonucleotide. Other formulas forapproximating T_(m) are available and are known to those of ordinaryskill in the art.

Stringency is preferably adjusted so as to allow a given ASO todifferentially hybridize to a target polynucleotide of the correctallele and a target polynucleotide of the incorrect allele. Preferably,there will be at least a two-fold differential between the signalproduced by the ASO hybridizing to a target polynucleotide of thecorrect allele and the level of the signal produced by the ASOcross-hybridizing to a target polynucleotide of the incorrect allele(e.g., an ASO specific for a mutant allele cross-hybridizing to awild-type allele). In more preferred embodiments of the presentinvention, there is at least a five-fold signal differential. In highlypreferred embodiments of the present invention, there is at least anorder of magnitude signal differential between the ASO hybridizing to atarget polynucleotide of the correct allele and the level of the signalproduced by the ASO cross-hybridizing to a target polynucleotide of theincorrect allele.

While certain methods for detecting polymorphisms are described herein,other detection methodologies may be utilized. For example, additionalmethodologies are known and set forth, in Birren et al., GenomeAnalysis, 4:135-186, A Laboratory Manual. Mapping Genomes, Cold SpringHarbor Laboratory Press, Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y. (1999); Maliga et al.,Methods in Plant Molecular Biology. A Laboratory Course Manual, ColdSpring Harbor Laboratory Press, Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y. (1995);Paterson, Biotechnology Intelligence Unit: Genome Mapping in Plants, R.G. Landes Co., Georgetown, Tex., and Academic Press, San Diego, Calif.(1996); The Corn Handbook, Freeling and Walbot, eds., Springer-Verlag,New York, N.Y. (1994); Methods in Molecular Medicine: MolecularDiagnosis of Genetic Diseases, Elles, ed., Humana Press, Totowa, N.J.(1996); Clark, ed., Plant Molecular Biology: A Laboratory Manual, Clark,ed., Springer-Verlag, Berlin, Germany (1997).

Factors for marker-assisted selection in a plant breeding program are:(1) the marker(s) should co-segregate or be closely linked with thedesired trait; (2) an efficient means of screening large populations forthe molecular marker(s) should be available; and (3) the screeningtechnique should have high reproducibility across laboratories andpreferably be economical to use and be user-friendly.

The genetic linkage of marker molecules can be established by a genemapping model such as, without limitation, the flanking marker modelreported by Lander and Botstein, Genetics 121:185-199 (1989) and theinterval mapping, based on maximum likelihood methods described byLander and Botstein, Genetics 121:185-199 (1989) and implemented in thesoftware package MAPMAKER/QTL (Lincoln and Lander, Mapping GenesControlling Quantitative Traits Using MAPMAKER/QTL, Whitehead Institutefor Biomedical Research, Massachusetts, (1990). Additional softwareincludes Qgene, Version 2.23 (1996), Department of Plant Breeding andBiometry, 266 Emerson Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y.). Use ofQgene software is a particularly preferred approach.

A maximum likelihood estimate (MLE) for the presence of a marker iscalculated, together with an MLE assuming no QTL effect, to avoid falsepositives. A log₁₀ of an odds ratio (LOD) is then calculated as:LOD=log₁₀ (MLE for the presence of a QTL/MLE given no linked QTL).

The LOD score essentially indicates how much more likely the data are tohave arisen assuming the presence of a QTL than in its absence. The LODthreshold value for avoiding a false positive with a given confidence,say 95%, depends on the number of markers and the length of the genome.Graphs indicating LOD thresholds are set forth in Lander and Botstein,Genetics 121:185-199 (1989) and further described by Arús andMoreno-González, Plant Breeding, Hayward et al., (eds.) Chapman & Hall,London, pp. 314-331 (1993).

In a preferred embodiment of the present invention the nucleic acidmarker exhibits a LOD score of greater than 2.0, more preferably 2.5,even more preferably greater than 3.0 or 4.0 with the trait or phenotypeof interest. In a preferred embodiment, the trait of interest is alteredtocopherol levels or compositions or altered tocotrienol levels orcompositions.

Additional models can be used. Many modifications and alternativeapproaches to interval mapping have been reported, including the usenon-parametric methods (Kruglyak and Lander, Genetics 139:1421-1428(1995)). Multiple regression methods or models can be also be used, inwhich the trait is regressed on a large number of markers (Jansen,Biometrics in Plant Breeding, van Oijen and Jansen (eds.), Proceedingsof the Ninth Meeting of the Eucarpia Section Biometrics in PlantBreeding, The Netherlands, pp. 116-124 (1994); Weber and Wricke,Advances in Plant Breeding, Blackwell, Berlin, 16 (1994)). Procedurescombining interval mapping with regression analysis, whereby thephenotype is regressed onto a single putative QTL at a given markerinterval and at the same time onto a number of markers that serve as‘cofactors,’ have been reported by Jansen and Stam, Genetics136:1447-1455 (1994), and Zeng, Genetics 136:1457-1468 (1994).Generally, the use of cofactors reduces the bias and sampling error ofthe estimated QTL positions (Utz and Melchinger, Biometrics in PlantBreeding, van Oijen and Jansen (eds.) Proceedings of the Ninth Meetingof the Eucarpia Section Biometrics in Plant Breeding, The Netherlands,pp. 195-204 (1994), thereby improving the precision and efficiency ofQTL mapping (Zeng, Genetics 136:1457-1468 (1994)). These models can beextended to multi-environment experiments to analyzegenotype-environment interactions (Jansen et al., Theo. Appl. Genet.91:33-37 (1995)).

It is understood that one or more of the nucleic acid molecules of theinvention may be used as molecular markers. It is also understood thatone or more of the protein molecules of the invention may be used asmolecular markers.

In a preferred embodiment, the polymorphism is present and screened forin a mapping population, e.g. a collection of plants capable of beingused with markers such as polymorphic markers to map genetic position oftraits. The choice of appropriate mapping population often depends onthe type of marker systems employed (Tanksley et al., J. P. Gustafsonand R. Appels (eds.). Plenum Press, New York, pp. 157-173 (1988)).Consideration must be given to the source of parents (adapted vs.exotic) used in the mapping population. Chromosome pairing andrecombination rates can be severely disturbed (suppressed) in widecrosses (adapted×exotic) and generally yield greatly reduced linkagedistances. Wide crosses will usually provide segregating populationswith a relatively large number of polymorphisms when compared to progenyin a narrow cross (adapted×adapted).

An F₂ population is the first generation of selfing (self-pollinating)after the hybrid seed is produced. Usually a single F₁ plant is selfedto generate a population segregating for all the genes in Mendelian(1:2:1) pattern. Maximum genetic information is obtained from acompletely classified F₂ population using a codominant marker system(Mather, Measurement of Linkage in Heredity: Methuen and Co., (1938)).In the case of dominant markers, progeny tests (e.g., F₃, BCF₂) arerequired to identify the heterozygotes, in order to classify thepopulation. However, this procedure is often prohibitive because of thecost and time involved in progeny testing. Progeny testing of F₂individuals is often used in map construction where phenotypes do notconsistently reflect genotype (e.g. disease resistance) or where traitexpression is controlled by a QTL. Segregation data from progeny testpopulations e.g. F₃ or BCF₂) can be used in map construction.Marker-assisted selection can then be applied to cross progeny based onmarker-trait map associations (F₂, F₃), where linkage groups have notbeen completely disassociated by recombination events (i.e., maximumdisequilibrium).

Recombinant inbred lines (RIL) (genetically related lines; usually >F₅,developed from continuously selfing F₂ lines towards homozygosity) canbe used as a mapping population. Information obtained from dominantmarkers can be maximized by using RIL because all loci are homozygous ornearly so. Under conditions of tight linkage (i.e., about <10%recombination), dominant and co-dominant markers evaluated in RILpopulations provide more information per individual than either markertype in backcross populations (Reiter. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. (U.S.A.)89:1477-1481 (1992)). However, as the distance between markers becomeslarger (i.e., loci become more independent), the information in RILpopulations decreases dramatically when compared to codominant markers.

Backcross populations (e.g., generated from a cross between a successfulvariety (recurrent parent) and another variety (donor parent) carrying atrait not present in the former) can be utilized as a mappingpopulation. A series of backcrosses to the recurrent parent can be madeto recover most of its desirable traits. Thus a population is createdconsisting of individuals nearly like the recurrent parent but eachindividual carries varying amounts or mosaic of genomic regions from thedonor parent. Backcross populations can be useful for mapping dominantmarkers if all loci in the recurrent parent are homozygous and the donorand recurrent parent have contrasting polymorphic marker alleles (Reiteret al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. (U.S.A.) 89:1477-1481 (1992)).Information obtained from backcross populations using either codominantor dominant markers is less than that obtained from F₂ populationsbecause one, rather than two, recombinant gamete is sampled per plant.Backcross populations, however, are more informative (at low markersaturation) when compared to RILs as the distance between linked lociincreases in RIL populations (i.e. about 0.15% recombination). Increasedrecombination can be beneficial for resolution of tight linkages, butmay be undesirable in the construction of maps with low markersaturation.

Near-isogenic lines (NIL) (created by many backcrosses to produce acollection of individuals that is nearly identical in geneticcomposition except for the trait or genomic region under interrogation)can be used as a mapping population. In mapping with NILs, only aportion of the polymorphic loci is expected to map to a selected region.

Bulk segregant analysis (BSA) is a method developed for the rapididentification of linkage between markers and traits of interest(Michelmore et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci U.S.A. 88:9828-9832 (1991)).In BSA, two bulked DNA samples are drawn from a segregating populationoriginating from a single cross. These bulks contain individuals thatare identical for a particular trait (resistant or susceptible toparticular disease) or genomic region but arbitrary at unlinked regions(i.e. heterozygous). Regions unlinked to the target region will notdiffer between the bulked samples of many individuals in BSA.

In an aspect of the present invention, one or more of the nucleicmolecules of the present invention are used to determine the level(i.e., the concentration of mRNA in a sample, etc.) in a plant(preferably canola, corn, Brassica campestris, oilseed rape, rapeseed,soybean, crambe, mustard, castor bean, peanut, sesame, cottonseed,linseed, safflower, oil palm, flax or sunflower) or pattern (i.e., thekinetics of expression, rate of decomposition, stability profile, etc.)of the expression of a protein encoded in part or whole by one or moreof the nucleic acid molecule of the present invention (collectively, the“Expression Response” of a cell or tissue).

As used herein, the Expression Response manifested by a cell or tissueis said to be “altered” if it differs from the Expression Response ofcells or tissues of plants not exhibiting the phenotype. To determinewhether an Expression Response is altered, the Expression Responsemanifested by the cell or tissue of the plant exhibiting the phenotypeis compared with that of a similar cell or tissue sample of a plant notexhibiting the phenotype. As will be appreciated, it is not necessary tore-determine the Expression Response of the cell or tissue sample ofplants not exhibiting the phenotype each time such a comparison is made;rather, the Expression Response of a particular plant may be comparedwith previously obtained values of normal plants. As used herein, thephenotype of the organism is any of one or more characteristics of anorganism (e.g. disease resistance, pest tolerance, environmentaltolerance such as tolerance to abiotic stress, male sterility, qualityimprovement or yield etc.). A change in genotype or phenotype may betransient or permanent. Also as used herein, a tissue sample is anysample that comprises more than one cell. In a preferred aspect, atissue sample comprises cells that share a common characteristic (e.g.Derived from root, seed, flower, leaf, stem or pollen etc.).

In one aspect of the present invention, an evaluation can be conductedto determine whether a particular mRNA molecule is present. One or moreof the nucleic acid molecules of the present invention are utilized todetect the presence or quantity of the mRNA species. Such molecules arethen incubated with cell or tissue extracts of a plant under conditionssufficient to permit nucleic acid hybridization. The detection ofdouble-stranded probe-mRNA hybrid molecules is indicative of thepresence of the mRNA; the amount of such hybrid formed is proportionalto the amount of mRNA. Thus, such probes may be used to ascertain thelevel and extent of the mRNA production in a plant's cells or tissues.Such nucleic acid hybridization may be conducted under quantitativeconditions (thereby providing a numerical value of the amount of themRNA present). Alternatively, the assay may be conducted as aqualitative assay that indicates either that the mRNA is present, orthat its level exceeds a user set, predefined value.

A number of methods can be used to compare the expression responsebetween two or more samples of cells or tissue. These methods includehybridization assays, such as northerns, RNAse protection assays, and insitu hybridization. Alternatively, the methods include PCR-type assays.In a preferred method, the expression response is compared byhybridizing nucleic acids from the two or more samples to an array ofnucleic acids. The array contains a plurality of suspected sequencesknown or suspected of being present in the cells or tissue of thesamples.

An advantage of in situ hybridization over more conventional techniquesfor the detection of nucleic acids is that it allows an investigator todetermine the precise spatial population (Angerer et al., Dev. Biol.101:477-484 (1984); Angerer et al., Dev. Biol. 112:157-166 (1985); Dixonet al., EMBO J. 10:1317-1324 (1991)). In situ hybridization may be usedto measure the steady-state level of RNA accumulation (Hardin et al., J.Mol. Biol. 202:417-431 (1989)). A number of protocols have been devisedfor in situ hybridization, each with tissue preparation, hybridizationand washing conditions (Meyerowitz, Plant Mol. Biol. Rep. 5:242-250(1987); Cox and Goldberg, In: Plant Molecular Biology: A PracticalApproach, Shaw (ed.), pp. 1-35, IRL Press, Oxford (1988); Raikhel etal., In situ RNA hybridization in plant tissues, In: Plant MolecularBiology Manual, vol. B9:1-32, Kluwer Academic Publisher, Dordrecht,Belgium (1989)).

In situ hybridization also allows for the localization of proteinswithin a tissue or cell (Wilkinson, In Situ Hybridization, OxfordUniversity Press, Oxford (1992); Langdale, In Situ Hybridization In: TheCorn Handbook, Freeling and Walbot (eds.), pp. 165-179, Springer-Verlag,New York (1994)). It is understood that one or more of the molecules ofthe invention, preferably one or more of the nucleic acid molecules orfragments thereof of the invention or one or more of the antibodies ofthe invention may be utilized to detect the level or pattern of aprotein or mRNA thereof by in situ hybridization.

Fluorescent in situ hybridization allows the localization of aparticular DNA sequence along a chromosome, which is useful, among otheruses, for gene mapping, following chromosomes in hybrid lines, ordetecting chromosomes with translocations, transversions or deletions.In situ hybridization has been used to identify chromosomes in severalplant species (Griffor et al., Plant Mol. Biol. 17:101-109 (1991);Gustafson et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. (U.S.A.) 87:1899-1902 (1990);Mukai and Gill, Genome 34:448-452 (1991); Schwarzacher andHeslop-Harrison, Genome 34:317-323 (1991); Wang et al., Jpn. J. Genet.66:313-316 (1991); Parra and Windle, Nature Genetics 5:17-21 (1993)). Itis understood that the nucleic acid molecules of the invention may beused as probes or markers to localize sequences along a chromosome.

Another method to localize the expression of a molecule is tissueprinting. Tissue printing provides a way to screen, at the same time onthe same membrane many tissue sections from different plants ordifferent developmental stages (Yomo and Taylor, Planta 112:35-43(1973); Harris and Chrispeels, Plant Physiol. 56:292-299 (1975); Cassaband Varner, J. Cell. Biol. 105:2581-2588 (1987); Spruce et al.,Phytochemistry 26:2901-2903 (1987); Barres et al., Neuron 5:527-544(1990); Reid and Pont-Lezica, Tissue Printing Tools for the Study ofAnatomy, Histochemistry and Gene Expression, Academic Press, New York,N.Y. (1992); Reid et al., Plant Physiol. 93:160-165 (1990); Ye et al.,Plant J. 1:175-183 (1991)).

One skilled in the art can refer to general reference texts for detaileddescriptions of known techniques discussed herein or equivalenttechniques. These texts include Current Protocols in Molecular BiologyAusubel, et al., eds., John Wiley & Sons, N.Y. (1989), and supplementsthrough September (1998), Molecular Cloning, A Laboratory Manual,Sambrook et al, 2^(nd) Ed., Cold Spring Harbor Press, Cold SpringHarbor, N.Y. (1989), Genome Analysis: A Laboratory Manual 1: AnalyzingDNA, Birren et al., Cold Spring Harbor Press, Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y.(1997); Genome Analysis: A Laboratory Manual 2: Detecting Genes, Birrenet al., Cold Spring Harbor Press, Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y. (1998);Genome Analysis: A Laboratory Manual 3: Cloning Systems, Birren et al.,Cold Spring Harbor Press, Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y. (1999); GenomeAnalysis: A Laboratory Manual 4: Mapping Genomes, Birren et al., ColdSpring Harbor Press, Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y. (1999); Plant MolecularBiology: A Laboratory Manual, Clark, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, (1997),Methods in Plant Molecular Biology, Maliga et al., Cold Spring HarborPress, Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y. (1995). These texts can, of course, alsobe referred to in making or using an aspect of the invention. It isunderstood that any of the agents of the invention can be substantiallypurified and/or be biologically active and/or recombinant.

Having now generally described the invention, the same will be morereadily understood through reference to the following examples that areprovided by way of illustration, and are not intended to be limiting ofthe present invention, unless specified.

EXAMPLE 1

A DNA sequence of gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase from Arabidopsisthaliana (NCBI General Identifier Number 4106537) is used to searchdatabases for plant sequences with homology to GMT using BLASTN(Altschul et al., Nucleic Acids Res. 25:3389-3402 (1997); see alsowww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/BLAST/). Results are shown in table 1, below.

TABLE 1 BLAST RESULTS FOR PLANT SEQUENCES ENCODING POLYPEPTIDESHOMOLOGOUS TO ARABIDOPSIS GAMMA-TOCOPHEROL METHYLTRANSFERASE Sequencesproducing significant alignments: Score (bits) E Value Arabidopsisthaliana (Columbia ecotype) 707 0.0 Brassica napus S8 clone 611 e−179Brassica napus P4 clone 605 e−177 cotton GMT 459 e−133 soybeanGMT2 454e−132 soybeanGMT1 453 e−132 soybeanGMT3 453 e−131 Marigold GMT (Tageteserecta) 446 e−129 tomato GMT 441 e−128 cuphea GMT 440 e−127 Rice GMT 430e−124 corn GMT 428 e−123 sorghum bicolor GMT 328 9e−94

The protein identity of these sequences compared to one another islisted in table 2.

TABLE 2 PROTEIN IDENTITY TABLE OF PLANT SEQUENCES ENCODING POLYPEPTIDESHOMOLOGOUS TO GAMMA-TOCOPHEROL METHYLTRANSFERASE Arabidopsis GMTArabidopsis Brassica Brassica Cuphea Gossypium Zea Oryza Sorghum Tagetes(gi 4106537) Columbia S8 P4 pulcherrima hirsutum mays sativa bicolorerecta Arabidopsis GMT 100%  (gi 4106537) 348/348 Arabidopsis 99% 100% Columbia GMT 347/348 348/348 Brassica S8 GMT 88% 88% 100%  309/350308/350 347/347 Brassica P4 GMT 87% 86% 96% 100%  304/349 303/349335/348 347/347 Cuphea pulcherrima 72% 71% 68% 68% 100%  GMT 213/295212/295 216/314 213/313 376/376 Gossypium hirsutum 67% 67% 71% 67% 71%100%  GMT 218/323 219/323 225/316 231/342 212/296 345/345 Zea mays GMT63% 62% 65% 63% 71% 67% 100%  210/333 209/333 217/332 211/330 208/290223/331 352/352 Oryza sativa GMT 63% 63% 67% 62% 70% 65% 76% 100% 212/332 212/332 214/319 220/352 204/291 226/347 279/364 364/364 Sorghumbicolor GMT 72% 72% 75% 73% 74% 78% 96% 91% 100%  154/212 153/212159/212 156/212 157/212 166/212 208/215 193/212 215/215 Tagetes erectaGMT 69% 70% 69% 68% 72% 70% 70% 71% 77% 100% 218/312 219/312 214/309211/310 210/291 209/297 216/305 219/308 165/212 310/310 Lycopersicon 68%esculentum GMT 212/311 Glycine max GMT1 73% 218/297 Glycine max GMT2 70%225/318 Glycine max GMT3 75% 220/290

A protein sequence of the Synechocystis GMT (NCBI General IdentifierNumber 1001725) is used in a BlastP search against predicted ORFs fromother cyanobacteria at the ERGO website(www.integratedgenomics.com/IGwit/).

Two sequences with substantial homology to the Synechocystis GMT arefound from two cyanobacteria species. These sequences are annotated ashaving a function of delta(24)-sterol C-methyltransferase (EC 2.1.1.41).

E-Value Score Nostoc punctiforme 1e−105 375 Anabaena sp. 1e−101 361

TABLE 3 CYANOBACTERIA GMT CLUSTAL W (1.8) MULTIPLE SEQUENCE ALIGNMENTNostoc punctiforme     -------------------------MSATLYQQIQQFYDASSGLWEQIWGEHMHHG Anabaenasp.       ----------------------------- MSATLYQQIQQFYDASSGLWEEIWGEHMHHGSynechocystisMVYHVRPKHALFLAFYCYFSLLTMASATIASADLYEKINKNFYDDSSGLWEDVWGEHMHHG                                                  ** **::*::*********::******** Nostoc punctiformeYYGADGTQKKDRRQAQIDLIEELLNWAGVQAAED--- LDVGCGIGGSSLYLAQKFNAKA Anabaenasp.       YYGADGTEQKNRRQAQIDLIEELLTWAGVQTAEN--- LDVGCGIGGSSLYLAGKLNAKASynechocystisYGPHGTYRIDRRQAQIDLIKELLAWAVPQNSAKPRKILDLGCGIGGSSLYLAQQHQAEV                    ***..** : :*********:*** **  * :.   ***:************ : *:. Nostoc punctiformeGITLSPVQAARATERALEANLSLRTQFQVANAQAMPFADDSFDLVWSLESGEHMPDKTK Anabaena sp.GITLSPVQAARATERAKEAGLSGRSQFLVANAQAMPFDDNSFDLVWSLESGEHMPDKTKSynechocystisMGASLSPVQVERAGERARALGLGSTCQFQVANALDLPFASDSFDWVWSLESGEHMPNKAQ                     * :*****. ** ***   .*.   ** ****  :** .:*************:*:: Nostoc punctiforme FLQECYRVLKPGGKLIMVTWCHRPTD--ESPLTADEEKHLQDIYRVYCLPYVISLPEYEA Anabaenasp.       FLQECYRVLKPGGKLIMVTWCHRPTD-- KTPLTADEKKHLEDIYRVYCLPYVISLPEYEASynechocystisFLQEAWRVLKPGGRLILATWCHRPIDPGNGPLTADERRHLQAIYDVYCLPYVVSLPDYEA                   ****.:*******:**:.****** *  : ******.:**: *********:***:*** Nostoc punctiformeIAHQLPLHNIRTADWSTAVAPFWNVVIDSAFTPQALWGLLNAGWTTIQGALSLGLMRRGY Anabaenaap. IARQLPLNNIRTADWSQSVAQFWNIVIDSAFTPQAIFGLLRAGWTTIQGALSLGLMRRGYSynechocystisIARECGFGEIKTADWSVAVAPFWDRVIESAFDPRVLWALGQAGPKIINAALCLRLMKWGY                   **::  : :*:***** :** **: **:*** *:.::.* .** . *:.**.***: ** Nostoc punctiforme ERGLIRFGLLCGNK--- (SEQ ID NO: 39) Anabaenasp.       ERGLIRFGLLCGDK--- (SEQ ID NO: 40)Synechocystis      ERGLVRFGLLTGIKPLV (SEQ ID NO: 41)                   ****:***** * *

The sequence of the Synechocystis MT1 (NCBI General Identifier Number1653572) is used in a blast search against ESTs of other cyanobacteriaat the ERGO website (www.integratedgenomics.com/IGwit/).

Three sequences with substantial homology to the Synechocystis MT1 arefound from three cyanobacteria species. These sequences are allannotated as having a function of DELTA(24)-STEROL C-METHYLTRANSFERASE(EC 2.1.1.41)

BlastP SCORE Anabaena sp. 1e−144 504 Synechococcus sp. 6e−98 350Prochlorococcus marinus 2e−84 304

TABLE 4 CYANOBACTERIA MT1 CLUSTAL W (1.8) MULTIPLE SEQUENCE ALIGNMENTSynechocystisMPEYLLLPAGLISLSLAIAAGLYLLTARGYQSSDSVANAYDQWTEDGILEYYWGDHIHLG Anabaena-MSWLFSTLVFFLTLLTAGIALYLITARRYQSSNSVANSYDQWTEDGILEFYWGEHIHLGSynechococcus---MLGLLLLTGAAGATALLIWLQRDRRYHSSDSVAAAYDAWTDDQLLERLWGDHHIHLGProchlorococcusMSIFLISSLVIFLTLLFSSLILWRINTRKYISSRTVATAYDSWTQDKLLERLWGEHIHLG    *     :       .  ::    * * ** :** :** **:* :**  **:*:***SynechocystisHYGDPPVAKDFIQSKIDFVHAMAQWGGLDTLPPGTTVLDVGCGIGGSSRILAKDYGFNVT AnabaenaHYGSPPQRKDFLVAKSDFVHEMVRWGGLDKLPPGTTLLDVGCGIGGSSRILARDYGFAVTSynechococcusHYGNPPGSVDFRQAKEAFVHELVRWSGLDQLPRGSRVLDVGCGIGGSARILARDYGLDVLProchlorococcusFYP-LNKNIDFREAKVQFVHELVSWSGLDKLPRGSRILDVGCGIGGSSRILANYYGFNVT.*       **  :*  *** :. *.*** ** *: :**********:****. **: *SynechocystisGITISPQQVKRATELTPPDVTAKFAVDDAMALSFPDGSFDVVWSVEAGPHMPDKAVFAKE AnabaenaGITISPQQVQRAQELTPQELNAQFLVDDAMALSFPDNSFDVVWSIEAGPHMPDKAIFAKESynechococcusGVSISPAQIRRATELTPAGLSCRFEVMDALNLQLPDRQFDAVWTVEAGPHMPDKQRFADEProchlorococcusGITISPAQVKRAKELTPYECKDNFKVMDALDLKFEEGIFDGVWSVEAGAHMNNKTKFADQ *::****::** ****   ...* * **: *.: :  ** **::***.** :*  **.: SynechocystisLLRVVKPGGILVVADWNQRDDRQVPLNFWEKPVMRQLLDQWSHPAFASIEGFAENLEATG AnabaenaLMRVLKPGGIMVLADWNQRDDRQKPLNFWEKPVMQQLLDQWSHPAFSSIEGFSELLAATGSynechococcusLLRVLRPGGCLAAADWNRRAPKDGAMNSTERWVMRQLLNQWAHPEFASISGFRANLEASPProchlorococcusMLRTLRPGGYLALADWNSRDLQKQPPSMIEKIILKQLLEQWVHPKFISINEFSSILINNK ::*.::***:. **** *  :. . .  *: :::***:** ** * **. *   *  . SynechocystisLVEGQVTTADWTVPTLPAWLDTIWQGIIRPQGWLQYGIRGFIKSVREVPTILLMRLAFGV AnabaenaLVEGEVITADWTKQTLPSWLDSIWQGIVRPEGLVRGGLSGFIKSLREVPTLLLMRLAFGTSynechococcusHQRGLISTGDWTLATLPSWFDSIAEGLRRPWAVLGLGPKAVLQGLRETPTLLLMHWAFATProchlorococcusNSSGQVISSNWNSFTNPSWFDSIFEGMRRPNSILSLGPGAIIKSIREIPTILLMDWAFKK    * ::.:*.  * *:*:*:* :*: ** . :  *  ..::.:** **:***  ** SynechocystisGLCRFGMFKAVRKNATQA------------- (SEQ ID NO: 46) AnabaenaGLCRFGMFRALRADTVRSSAEQTSAIKVAQK (SEQ ID NO: 47) SynechococcusGLMQFGVFRLSR------------------- (SEQ ID NO: 48) ProchlorococcusGLMEFGVYKCRG------------------- (SEQ ID NO: 49) ** .**:::

EXAMPLE 2

Constructs are prepared to direct expression of the Arabidopsis, P4 andS8 Brassica napus, Cuphea pulcherrima, and Gossypium hirsutum GMTsequences in plants. The coding region of each GMT is amplified fromeither the appropriate EST clone or cDNA, as appropriate. Doublestranded DNA sequence is obtained of all PCR products to verify that noerrors are introduced by the PCR amplification.

An S8 Brassica GMT coding sequence is amplified from Brassica napus leafcDNA as follows: PolyA⁺ RNA is isolated from Brassica napus (var.Quantum) leaf tissue using an adapted biotin/streptavadin procedurebased on the “mRNA Capture Kit” by Roche Molecular Biochemicals(Indianapolis, Ind.). Young leaf tissue is homogenized in CTAB buffer(50 mM Tris-HCl pH 9, 0.8M NaCl, 0.5% CTAB, 10 mM EDTA), extracted withchloroform, and pelleted. As specified by the manufacturer'sinstructions, polyA⁺ RNA in the soluble fraction is hybridized tobiotin-labeled oligo-dT, immobilized on streptavadin-coated PCR tubesand washed. First strand cDNA is synthesized using the “1^(st) strandcDNA synthesis kit for RT-PCR” (Roche Molecular Biochemicals) in a 50 μlvolume according to the manufacturer's protocol. Following the cDNAsynthesis, the soluble contents of the tube are replaced with equalvolume amplification reaction mixture. Components of the mixture atfinal concentration consisted of: 1× Buffer 2 (EXPAND High Fidelity PCRSystem, Roche Molecular Biochemicals), 200 μM dNTPs, 0.5 units RNAseH,300 nM each synthetic oligonucleotide primers #16879 (SEQ ID NO: 51) and#16880 (SEQ ID NO: 52) and 0.4 μl EXPAND High Fidelity Polymerase (RocheMolecular Biochemicals).

A GMT gene is PCR amplified for 30 cycles using a “touchdown” cyclingprofile: 15 min pre-incubation at 37° C. followed by a 3 minpre-incubation at 94° C., during which EXPAND polymerase is spiked intothe mix. The product is then amplified for 15 cycles consisting ofdenaturation at 94° C. for 30 sec, annealing at 65° C. for 30 sec, andelongation at 72° C. for 1.5 min. The annealing temperature is decreasedby 1° C. per cycle for each of the previous 15 cycles. An additional 15cycles followed, consisting of 94° C. for 30 sec, 50° C. for 30 sec, and72° C. for 1.5 min, followed by a 7 min hold at 72° C.

The resulting PCR product is desalted using the Pharmacia “MICROSPINS-400 HR Column” (Pharmacia, Uppsala, Sweden) then cloned into thevector pCR2.1 using the “TOPO TA Cloning® Kit” (Invitrogen, Carlsbad,Calif.) according to manufacturer's instructions. The resultantintermediate plasmid is named pMON67178 and confirmed by DNA sequencing.A pMON67178 intermediate plasmid is digested with the restrictionendonucleases NotI and Sse83871 to liberate a S8 Brassica GMT insert,which is then gel-purified using the “QIAQUICK Gel Extraction Kit”(QIAGEN Inc., Valencia, Calif.). The vector pCGN9979 (FIG. 2) isprepared by digesting with NotI and Sse83871 endonucleases. Enzymes aresubsequently removed using “StrataClean Resin™” (Stratagene, La Jolla,Calif.) followed by “MicroSpin S-400 HR Column” treatment (Pharmacia,Uppsala, Sweden). A GMT insert is ligated into the pCGN9979 vector,resulting in the formation of the binary construct pMON67170.

An Arabidopsis GMT coding sequence is amplified from Arabidopsisthaliana, ecotype Columbia using the same methodology as described abovefor the S8 Brassica GMT with the exceptions that RNAseH is not added tothe amplification reaction mixture, and the synthetic oligonucleotideprimers are #16562 (SEQ ID NO: 75) and #16563 (SEQ ID NO: 76). Theresulting PCR product is desalted using the Pharmacia “MICROSPIN S-400HR Column” (Pharmacia, Uppsala, Sweden) then cloned into the vectorpCR2.1 using the “TOPO TA Cloning® Kit” (Invitrogen, Carlsbad, Calif.)according to manufacturer's instructions. The resultant intermediateplasmid is named pMON67155 and confirmed by DNA sequencing. ThepMON67155 intermediate plasmid is digested with the restrictionendonucleases NotI and Sse83871 to liberate an Arabidopsis thaliana GMTinsert, which is then gel-purified using the “QIAQUICK Gel ExtractionKit” (QIAGEN Inc., Valencia, Calif.). The vector pCGN9979 is prepared bydigesting with NotI and Sse83871 endonucleases. Enzymes are subsequentlyremoved using “StrataClean Resin™” (Stratagene, La Jolla, Calif.)followed by “MICROSPIN S-400 HR Column” treatment (Pharmacia, Uppsala,Sweden). A GMT insert is ligated into the pCGN9979 vector, resulting inthe formation of the binary construct pMON67156.

A P4 Brassica GMT coding sequence is amplified from Brassica napus leafcDNA using the same methodology as described above for the S8 BrassicaGMT with the exceptions that RNAseH is not added to the amplificationreaction mixture, and the synthetic oligonucleotide primers are #16655(SEQ ID NO: 53) and #16654 (SEQ ID NO: 54). A “touchdown” cyclingconditions consisted of a pre-incubation for 3 min at 94° C., duringwhich 0.4 μl EXPAND polymerase is spiked into the mix. The product isthen amplified with 15 cycles of denaturation at 94° C. for 30 sec,annealing at 60° C. for 30 sec, and elongation at 72° C. for 1.5 min.The annealing temperature is decreased by 1° C. per cycle for each ofthe previous 15 cycles. An additional 15 cycles followed, consisting of94° C. for 30 sec, 45° C. for 30 sec, and 72° C. for 1.5 min, followedby a 7 min hold at 72° C.

The resulting PCR product is desalted using the Pharmacia “MicroSpin™S-400 HR Column” (Pharmacia, Uppsala, Sweden) then cloned into theGATEWAY vector pDONR™201 using the “PCR Cloning System with GATEWAYTechnology” (Life Technologies, a Division of Invitrogen Corporation,Rockville, Md.), according to the manufacturer's instructions. Theensuing plasmid pMON68751 is confirmed by DNA sequencing.

A P4 Brassica GMT is then cloned from the pMON68751 donor vector intothe pMON67150 destination vector, which is the GATEWAY-compatibleversion of the pCGN9979 Napin binary. The “E. coli Expression Systemswith GATEWAY Technology” kit (Life Technologies, a Division ofInvitrogen Corporation, Rockville, Md.) is used according to themanufacturer's instructions to create the expression clone pMON67159.

A Cuphea pulcherrima GMT coding sequence is amplified from the EST cloneLIB3792-031-Q1-K1-F3 using the synthetic oligonucleotide primers #16658(SEQ ID NO: 55) and #16659 (SEQ ID NO: 56). 1.01 μl of EST template isused for the Cuphea GMT amplification reaction. Otherwise, amplificationconditions and cycling parameters are identical to those of P4 BrassicaGMT.

Using the same GATEWAY procedure as described above for the P4 BrassicaGMT coding region, a Cuphea GMT PCR product is cloned into the pDONR™201vector to create pMON68752, then subcloned into the Napin expressionvector pMON67150 to create pMON67158.

A Gossypium hirsutum GMT coding sequence is amplified from the EST cloneLIB3584-003-P1-K1-A1 using the synthetic oligonucleotide primers #16681(SEQ ID NO: 57) and #16682 (SEQ ID NO: 58). 0.5 μl of EST template isused for the Gossypium GMT amplification reaction. Otherwise,amplification conditions and cycling parameters are identical to thoseof P4 Brassica GMT.

Using the same GATEWAY procedure as described above for the P4 BrassicaGMT coding region, a Gossypium GMT PCR product is cloned into thepDONR™201 vector to create pMON67161, then subcloned into a napinexpression vector pMON67150 to create pMON67160.

The napin cassette derived from pCGN3223 (described in U.S. Pat. No.5,639,790) is used to drive the expression of GMT sequences in seeds.GMT sequences are cloned into the multiple cloning site of the napincassette using either a Not/Sse83871 digest (pMON67178) or the gatewaycloning system (Gibco BRL) in a binary vector suitable for planttransformation (pCGN9979).

The resulting plasmids containing the gene of interest in the plantbinary transformation vector under the control of the napin promoter arelabeled as follows pMON67156 (Arabidopsis thaliana, Columbia ecotype),pMON67170 (S8 Brassica napus GMT), pMON67159 (P4 Brassica napus GMT),pMON 67158 (Cuphea pulcherrima GMT), and pMON 67160 (Gossypium hirsutumGMT).

The plant binary constructs described above are used in Arabidopsisthaliana plant transformation to direct the expression of thegamma-methyltransferases in the embryo. Binary vector constructs aretransformed into ABI strain Agrobacterium cells by the method ofHolsters et al. Mol. Gen. Genet. 163:181-187 (1978). TransgenicArabidopsis thaliana plants are obtained by Agrobacterium-mediatedtransformation as described by Valverkens et al., Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci.85:5536-5540 (1988), Bent et al., Science 265:1856-1860 (1994), andBechtold et al., CR. Acad. Sci., Life Sciences 316:1194-1199 (1993).Transgenic plants are selected by sprinkling the transformed T₁ seedsdirectly onto soil and then vernalizing them at 4° C. in the absence oflight for 4 days. The seeds are then transferred to 21° C., 16 hourslight and sprayed with a 1:200 dilution of FINALE (Basta) at 7 days and14 days after seeding. Transformed plants are grown to maturity and theT₂ seed that is produced is analyzed for tocopherol content. FIGS. 21 a,21 b, 22 a, and 22 b show the tocopherol analysis from T2 seed oftransgenic Arabidopsis thaliana plants expressing GMTs from differentsources under the control of the napin seed-specific promoter. FIG. 23is a graph showing average seed α-tocopherol levels for various lines oftransformed plants. In FIG. 23, the plant lines shown have the followingGMT sequence origins: 67156=Arabidopsis GMT, 67158=Cuphea GMT,67159=Brassica (P4)GMT, 67160=Cotton GMT, and 67170=Brassica (S8) GMT.Table 5 below gives specific tocopherol level results for varioustransformed and control plant lines.

TABLE 5 ng α ng β ng γ ng δ ng total toco/mg toco/mg toco/mg toco/mgtoco/mg % Avg. seed seed seed seed seed Line Number A. description Gen.Alpha Alpha % 6.64 15.28 494.91 13.16 529.99 9979-36 9979 = vectorcontrol 1.3 1.3 6.07 15.69 490.82 13.66 526.23 9979-37 9979 = vectorcontrol 1.2 6.57 16.79 492.59 12.37 528.32 9979-38 9979 = vector control1.2 7.76 17.16 513.41 15.76 554.09 9979-39 9979 = vector control 1.48.44 15.62 508.64 15.94 548.64 9979-40 9979 = vector control 1.5 291.4521.86 180.41 4.96 498.69 67156-8 67156 = napin GMT arab T2 58.4 75.5275.80 20.49 141.25 3.05 440.59 67156-6 67156 = napin GMT arab T2 62.6289.41 21.00 138.56 3.73 452.70 67156-12 67156 = napin GMT arab T2 63.9312.57 22.56 128.32 2.91 466.36 67156-5 67156 = napin GMT arab T2 67.0302.71 20.69 113.96 2.53 439.89 67156-3 67156 = napin GMT arab T2 68.8329.09 24.38 118.80 3.37 475.65 67156-1 67156 = napin GMT arab T2 69.2352.00 21.78 128.75 3.54 506.08 67156-9 67156 = napin GMT arab T2 69.6304.60 19.54 110.64 2.65 437.43 67156-11 67156 = napin GMT arab T2 69.6337.70 24.25 109.93 2.86 474.74 67156-15 67156 = napin GMT arab T2 71.1359.35 20.72 39.85 0.31 420.23 67156-13 67156 = napin GMT arab T2 85.5367.77 22.54 35.41 0.35 426.08 67156-14 67156 = napin GMT arab T2 86.3373.10 22.67 27.93 0.11 423.82 67156-10 67156 = napin GMT arab T2 88.0383.43 23.64 24.00 0.26 431.33 67156-2 67156 = napin GMT arab T2 88.9385.72 22.61 10.77 0.00 419.10 67156-4 67156 = napin GMT arab T2 92.0412.47 27.18 13.00 0.21 452.86 67156-7 67156 = napin GMT arab T2 91.1296.50 23.38 163.93 7.58 491.39 67159-3 67159 = brassica P4 GMT T2 60.369.1 327.29 3.46 192.06 9.38 532.18 67159-13 Brassica P4 GMT T2 61.5294.64 18.61 148.42 6.93 468.60 67159-2 67159 = brassica P4 GMT T2 62.9309.72 21.32 152.46 6.20 489.70 67159-7 67159 = brassica P4 GMT T2 63.2300.73 21.11 142.66 5.67 470.18 67519-1 67159 = brassica P4 GMT T2 64.0305.37 20.25 141.83 7.85 475.29 67159-10 67159 = brassica P4 GMT T2 64.2311.90 20.92 145.60 6.91 485.33 67159-5 67159 = brassica P4 GMT T2 64.3289.83 19.63 128.07 6.33 443.86 67159-12 67159 = brassica P4 GMT T2 65.3302.93 17.84 127.91 5.36 454.03 67159-6 67159 = brassica P4 GMT T2 66.7348.38 19.53 103.12 7.50 478.53 67159-9 67159 = brassica P4 GMT T2 72.8329.10 20.27 78.65 4.28 432.30 67159-15 67159 = brassica P4 GMT T2 76.1359.15 23.04 70.61 4.95 457.76 67159-11 67159 = brassica P4 GMT T2 78.5358.83 19.79 68.26 4.79 451.67 67159-14 67159 = brassica P4 GMT T2 79.4398.21 19.29 32.82 3.20 453.52 67159-4 67159 = brassica P4 GMT T2 87.83.97 0.00 494.67 15.15 513.79 9979-81 control 0.8 0.8 3.32 0.00 501.5818.47 523.37 9979-82 control 0.6 4.00 0.00 492.08 15.31 511.38 9979-83control 0.8 4.19 0.00 541.20 18.42 563.81 9979-84 control 0.7 5.23 0.00541.75 20.12 567.10 9979-85 control 0.9 251.34 10.02 216.55 6.77 484.6867158-8 napin Cuphea GMT T2 51.9 77.3 325.52 10.51 156.76 5.32 498.1167158-11 napin Cuphea GMT T2 65.4 338.00 10.58 155.40 5.35 509.3367158-12 napin Cuphea GMT T2 66.4 322.09 8.99 139.84 4.74 475.66 67158-5napin Cuphea GMT T2 67.7 348.47 12.70 132.54 5.14 498.85 67158-10 napinCuphea GMT T2 69.9 369.43 14.85 135.94 4.49 524.71 67158-15 napin CupheaGMT T2 70.4 324.99 9.08 123.23 3.95 461.25 67158-4 napin Cuphea GMT T270.5 358.91 8.49 108.56 3.76 479.72 67158-9 napin Cuphea GMT T2 74.8363.29 14.16 84.19 3.45 465.09 67158-3 napin Cuphea GMT T2 78.1 375.189.78 46.59 2.39 433.94 67158-1 napin Cuphea GMT T2 86.5 425.61 13.1439.87 2.71 481.32 67158-13 napin Cuphea GMT T2 88.4 415.44 13.75 33.162.01 464.35 67158-7 napin Cuphea GMT T2 89.5 452.35 15.65 21.65 3.46493.10 67158-2 napin Cuphea GMT T2 91.7 430.11 20.33 9.67 0.00 460.1167158-14 napin Cuphea GMT T2 93.5 408.68 13.89 7.13 1.22 430.92 67158-6napin Cuphea GMT T2 94.8 6.18 0.00 510.97 19.47 536.62 9979-86 control1.2 0.9 4.33 0.00 547.85 21.06 573.24 9979-87 control 0.8 6.28 0.00503.21 19.67 529.17 9979-88 control 1.2 4.35 0.00 538.55 21.08 563.989979-89 control 0.8 3.45 0.00 523.43 19.31 546.19 9979-90 control 0.65.52 0.47 478.70 17.54 502.23 67160-7 napin cotton GMT T2 1.1 65.1 8.110.00 552.24 21.34 581.69 67160-15 napin cotton GMT T2 1.4 324.58 7.93177.97 7.70 518.18 67160-9 napin cotton GMT T2 62.6 338.02 7.43 160.279.11 514.82 67160-1 napin cotton GMT T2 65.7 345.35 9.94 159.12 7.51521.92 67160-5 napin cotton GMT T2 66.2 355.54 9.65 155.73 6.95 527.8767160-14 napin cotton GMT T2 67.4 371.70 14.34 142.80 6.58 535.4367160-2 napin cotton GMT T2 69.4 355.35 5.96 135.17 9.11 505.59 67160-11napin cotton GMT T2 70.3 360.43 7.03 136.83 7.76 512.05 67160-6 napincotton GMT T2 70.4 373.32 9.65 138.68 7.74 529.39 67160-4 napin cottonGMT T2 70.5 374.20 10.97 89.34 4.57 479.07 67160-3 napin cotton GMT T278.1 435.98 16.16 67.09 4.81 524.03 67160-8 napin cotton GMT T2 83.2446.18 13.59 44.43 3.54 507.74 67160-12 napin cotton GMT T2 87.9 420.3413.54 26.74 2.51 463.12 67160-10 napin cotton GMT T2 90.8 465.41 15.3221.78 2.69 505.21 67160-13 napin cotton GMT T2 92.1 3.98 0.00 502.7815.54 522.30 9979-94 control 0.8 0.8 4.27 0.00 510.20 17.15 531.629979-93 control 0.8 4.42 0.00 549.18 18.50 572.10 9979-91 control 0.84.43 0.00 480.59 14.35 499.38 9979-95 control 0.9 5.22 0.00 538.48 19.08562.78 9979-92 control 0.9 306.93 7.18 193.74 7.25 515.10 67170-3Brassica S8 GMT T2 59.6 77.8 364.13 8.20 151.34 5.92 529.59 67170-6Brassica S8 GMT T2 68.8 355.93 6.18 137.59 5.36 505.06 67170-2 BrassicaS8 GMT T2 70.5 381.42 8.51 142.79 6.09 538.82 67170-14 Brassica S8 GMTT2 70.8 372.06 5.24 130.94 4.04 512.28 67170-9 Brassica S8 GMT T2 72.6368.24 7.38 108.85 4.32 488.79 67170-1 Brassica S8 GMT T2 75.3 374.715.53 97.22 3.29 480.75 67170-15 Brassica S8 GMT T2 77.9 419.64 11.3988.39 4.20 523.61 67170-5 Brassica S8 GMT T2 80.1 408.32 3.44 88.98 6.94507.68 67170-11 Brassica S8 GMT T2 80.4 438.52 10.27 55.07 3.73 507.5967170-8 Brassica S8 GMT T2 86.4 452.28 12.04 49.76 2.65 516.72 67170-7Brassica S8 GMT T2 87.5 461.35 10.82 51.41 2.62 526.20 67170-4 BrassicaS8 GMT T2 87.7 458.39 10.45 17.75 1.16 487.76 67170-12 Brassica S8 GMTT2 94.0 5.31 0.00 528.79 20.48 554.59 1 9979 1.0 1.1 5.91 0.00 543.9621.53 571.40 2 9979 1.0 5.26 0.00 515.35 18.45 539.07 3 9979 1.0 6.520.00 509.65 19.20 535.37 4 9979 1.2 7.70 0.00 537.19 22.97 567.87 5 99791.4 5.21 0.00 511.12 19.85 536.17 6 9979 1.0 301.07 4.48 125.80 7.99439.34 2-8 67159 = brassica P4 GMT T3 68.5 68.1 306.33 3.22 169.37 8.75487.68 2-3 67159 = brassica P4 GMT T3 62.8 320.26 6.05 167.87 8.65502.84 2-4 67159 = brassica P4 GMT T3 63.7 329.45 7.12 169.63 9.21515.41 2-2 67159 = brassica P4 GMT T3 63.9 329.53 5.80 152.26 8.99496.59 2-5 67159 = brassica P4 GMT T3 66.4 334.46 5.82 145.10 8.16493.54 2-6 67159 = brassica P4 GMT T3 67.8 335.46 4.25 141.18 8.39489.28 2-7 67159 = brassica P4 GMT T3 68.6 344.53 8.17 145.61 9.24507.54 2-1 67159 = brassica P4 GMT T3 67.9 401.15 5.41 68.31 8.01 482.882-9 67159 = brassica P4 GMT T3 83.1 345.21 3.07 161.54 11.71 521.53 4-267159 = brassica P4 GMT T3 66.2 89.2 431.50 6.46 56.16 6.72 500.83 4-967159 = brassica P4 GMT T3 86.2 445.25 5.69 20.55 7.24 478.73 4-8 67159= brassica P4 GMT T3 93.0 445.71 5.48 20.58 6.60 478.36 4-3 67159 =brassica P4 GMT T3 93.2 446.77 7.74 14.86 5.03 474.41 4-7 67159 =brassica P4 GMT T3 94.2 452.65 8.96 49.76 7.52 518.89 4-4 67159 =brassica P4 GMT T3 87.2 454.02 8.09 14.05 5.10 481.26 4-6 67159 =brassica P4 GMT T3 94.3 467.24 9.65 11.93 4.93 493.75 4-1 67159 =brassica P4 GMT T3 94.6 517.68 12.95 13.39 5.10 549.12 4-5 67159 =brassica P4 GMT T3 94.3 347.03 2.66 155.38 8.28 513.35 7-5 67159 =brassica P4 GMT T3 67.6 81.9 350.32 0.48 132.12 8.20 491.12 7-7 67159 =brassica P4 GMT T3 71.3 352.48 1.50 141.14 8.26 503.37 7-2 67159 =brassica P4 GMT T3 70.0 367.65 1.04 134.34 7.75 510.78 7-8 67159 =brassica P4 GMT T3 72.0 372.23 0.00 125.08 7.40 504.71 7-6 67159 =brassica P4 GMT T3 73.8 454.16 7.27 10.99 3.38 475.80 7-4 67159 =brassica P4 GMT T3 95.5 464.63 6.08 10.50 3.10 484.31 7-9 67159 =brassica P4 GMT T3 95.9 467.40 6.99 11.11 3.82 489.32 7-1 67159 =brassica P4 GMT T3 95.5 474.28 8.23 11.61 4.65 498.77 7-3 67159 =brassica P4 GMT T3 95.1 324.79 0.00 179.06 11.83 515.68 11-7 67159 =brassica P4 GMT T3 63.0 82.2 334.92 0.00 175.60 11.84 522.35 11-2 67159= brassica P4 GMT T3 64.1 352.84 0.00 170.23 12.16 535.22 11-5 67159 =brassica P4 GMT T3 65.9 425.54 4.66 49.26 5.84 485.30 11-3 67159 =brassica P4 GMT T3 87.7 427.09 5.61 61.10 6.38 500.18 11-4 67159 =brassica P4 GMT T3 85.4 448.32 6.34 12.02 4.67 471.35 11-6 67159 =brassica P4 GMT T3 95.1 462.49 7.21 42.46 7.43 519.59 11-1 67159 =brassica P4 GMT T3 89.0 464.30 4.97 12.86 5.43 487.55 11-9 67159 =brassica P4 GMT T3 95.2 469.00 4.57 16.21 5.08 494.86 11-8 67159 =brassica P4 GMT T3 94.8 427.19 7.33 43.05 4.39 481.96 4-9 67156 = napinGMT arab T3 88.6 94.0 429.83 3.85 47.80 3.09 484.57 4-8 67156 = napinGMT arab T3 88.7 442.62 8.97 45.02 3.71 500.32 4-4 67156 = napin GMTarab T3 88.5 449.25 4.88 13.31 2.54 469.99 4-2 67156 = napin GMT arab T395.6 454.35 6.96 2.91 2.58 466.79 4-5 67156 = napin GMT arab T3 97.3459.55 7.20 2.75 1.43 470.94 4-6 67156 = napin GMT arab T3 97.6 467.649.17 5.77 2.51 485.09 4-3 67156 = napin GMT arab T3 96.4 469.22 7.899.04 3.43 489.58 4-1 67156 = napin GMT arab T3 95.8 476.93 6.07 3.182.68 488.85 4-7 67156 = napin GMT arab T3 97.6 341.52 0.00 152.78 6.96501.27 7-1 67156 = napin GMT arab T3 68.1 90.7 426.76 3.74 55.93 7.18493.62 7-2 67156 = napin GMT arab T3 86.5 427.82 2.42 36.53 3.79 470.567-7 67156 = napin GMT arab T3 90.9 448.96 3.62 8.76 3.29 464.62 7-967156 = napin GMT arab T3 96.6 455.79 5.26 12.41 3.45 476.91 7-6 67156 =napin GMT arab T3 95.6 457.18 6.56 21.53 2.89 488.16 7-5 67156 = napinGMT arab T3 93.7 461.11 6.33 8.82 3.36 479.62 7-8 67156 = napin GMT arabT3 96.1 462.08 7.10 16.36 3.59 489.14 7-4 67156 = napin GMT arab T3 94.5466.01 7.72 15.40 4.54 493.68 7-3 67156 = napin GMT arab T3 94.4 5.090.00 535.79 19.35 560.22 9979-81:@.0005. Control 0.9 5.37 0.00 534.9321.47 561.77 9979-81:@.0006. Control 1.0 327.76 22.52 156.62 9.37 516.2767158-2:@.0002. napin Cuphea GMT T3 63.5 85.2 384.99 24.97 92.36 7.82510.14 67158-2:@.0001. napin Cuphea GMT T3 75.5 406.19 27.74 3.42 2.12439.47 67158-2:@.0006. napin Cuphea GMT T3 92.4 424.62 22.33 34.40 6.92488.27 67158-2:@.0009. napin Cuphea GMT T3 87.0 432.70 25.03 52.96 8.60519.29 67158-2:@.0004. napin Cuphea GMT T3 83.3 443.67 25.50 46.41 8.22523.80 67158-2:@.0003. napin Cuphea GMT T3 84.7 449.38 26.25 4.06 2.34482.03 67158-2:@.0005. napin Cuphea GMT T3 93.2 449.63 25.26 2.17 1.84478.89 67158-2:@.0008. napin Cuphea GMT T3 93.9 451.00 25.32 6.56 2.74485.63 67158-2:@.0007. napin Cuphea GMT T3 92.9 312.62 22.03 153.68 6.73495.05 67158-4:@.0007. napin Cuphea GMT T3 63.1 75.7 326.50 23.50 131.446.54 487.99 67158-4:@.0001. napin Cuphea GMT T3 66.9 327.91 22.51 143.837.42 501.67 67158-4:@.0005. napin Cuphea GMT T3 65.4 331.65 24.40 137.747.20 500.98 67158-4:@.0009. napin Cuphea GMT T3 66.2 345.95 24.75 134.176.75 511.62 67158-4:@.0006. napin Cuphea GMT T3 67.6 355.47 24.91 120.776.50 507.65 67158-4:@.0003. napin Cuphea GMT T3 70.0 448.67 24.98 0.921.97 476.54 67158-4:@.0004. napin Cuphea GMT T3 94.2 453.62 25.23 0.981.59 481.42 67158-4:@.0008. napin Cuphea GMT T3 94.2 456.45 27.19 1.341.92 486.91 67158-4:@.0002. napin Cuphea GMT T3 93.7 6.39 0.00 498.6724.65 529.71 9979-81:@.0007. Control 1.2 6.65 0.00 520.22 19.20 546.089979--81:@.0008. Control 1.2 325.71 19.95 154.88 8.09 508.6467158-9:@.0007. napin Cuphea GMT T3 64.0 68.4 330.27 21.90 154.36 8.08514.61 67158-9:@.0005. napin Cuphea GMT T3 64.2 347.97 22.33 129.57 6.54506.41 67158-9:@.0004. napin Cuphea GMT T3 68.7 351.68 22.59 122.64 6.96503.87 67158-9:@.0006. napin Cuphea GMT T3 69.8 353.74 22.51 118.23 6.90501.38 67158--9:@.0001. napin Cuphea GMT T3 70.6 354.17 23.30 137.477.50 522.44 67158--9:@.0002. napin Cuphea GMT T3 67.8 358.21 21.84132.99 6.76 519.80 67158-9:@.0009. napin Cuphea GMT T3 68.9 362.74 22.40114.96 6.69 506.79 67158-9:@.0008. napin Cuphea GMT T3 71.6 362.98 24.28124.73 6.50 518.49 67158-9:@.0003. napin Cuphea GMT T3 70.0 403.35 26.1933.39 3.08 466.02 67158-14:@.0003. napin Cuphea GMT T3 86.6 90.0 416.9126.96 34.74 3.21 481.83 67158-14:@.0002. napin Cuphea GMT T3 86.5 423.1022.19 36.04 3.17 484.50 67158-14:@.0008. napin Cuphea GMT T3 87.3 424.8726.52 4.48 1.62 457.49 67158--14:@.0004. napin Cuphea GMT T3 92.9 428.7523.34 24.92 5.13 482.14 67158-14:@.0009. napin Cuphea GMT T3 88.9 433.9630.08 5.32 2.24 471.61 67158--14:@.0001. napin Cuphea GMT T3 92.0 434.5129.70 20.34 1.90 486.44 67158-14:@.0005. napin Cuphea GMT T3 89.3 435.8623.44 3.27 1.75 464.33 67158-14:@.0006. napin Cuphea GMT T3 93.9 440.4623.40 10.67 2.27 476.80 67158-14:@.0007. napin Cuphea GMT T3 92.4

EXAMPLE 3

Computer programs are used to predict the chloroplast targeting peptidecleavage sites of the plant GMT proteins. The predictions of CTPs byusing two programs:

1) Program: Predotar Sequence ID Score Cut Site P-Value Gossypium 4.5649 * 50 3.0496E+07 Brassica 2.27 51 * 52 2.3192E+05 Cuphea 1.96undetermined 2.7934E−01

2) chloroplast target peptide prediction results Number of querysequences: 5 Name Length Score cTP CS-score cTP-length Arabidopsis 3480.587 Y 7.834 50 Gossypium 345 0.580 Y 4.116 48 Brassica 347 0.581 Y8.142 51 Cuphea 376 0.573 Y 1.746 64 Zea mays 352 0.560 Y 4.808 48

Based on this information GMT proteins from plant sources are engineeredto remove the predicted chloroplast target peptides to allow for theexpression of the mature protein in E. coli. In order for these proteinsto be expressed in a prokaryotic expression system, an amino terminalmethionine is required. This can be accomplished, for example, by theaddition of a 5′ ATG. A methionine is added to each of the followingamino acid sequences, which are expressed in E. coli with detectable GMTactivity (SEQ ID NOs: 33-38 each have the added methionine as the firstamino acid in the sequence): Mature S8 Brassica napus GMT protein asexpressed in E. coli (SEQ ID NO: 33); Mature P4 Brassica napus GMTprotein as expressed in E. coli (SEQ ID NO: 34); Mature Cupheapulcherrima GMT protein as expressed in E. coli (SEQ ID NO: 35); MatureGossypium hirsutum GMT protein as expressed in E. coli (SEQ ID NO: 36);Mature Tagetes erecta (Marigold) GMT protein as expressed in E. coli(SEQ ID NO:37); Mature Zea mays (Corn) GMT protein as expressed in E.coli (SEQ ID NO: 38).

Constructs are prepared to direct expression of the mature P4 and S8Brassica napus, Cuphea pulcherrima, Gossypium hirsutum, Tagetes erecta,and Zea mays GMT sequences in a prokaryotic expression vector. Themature protein-coding region of each GMT with the aminoterminalmethionine, as described previously, is amplified from plasmid DNA usingthe following species specific oligonucleotide primers in the polymerasechain reaction (PCR). Components of each 100 μl PCR reaction at finalconcentration consisted of: 1.0 μl genomic DNA or 1.0 μl plasmid DNAdiluted 1:20 with water, as appropriate, 1×Buffer 2 (EXPAND HighFidelity PCR System, Roche Molecular Biochemicals), 200 μM dNTPs, 300 nMeach, synthetic oligonucleotide primers, and 0.8 μl EXPAND High FidelityPolymerase (Roche Molecular Biochemicals, Indianapolis, Ind.).

“Touchdown” cycling conditions consisted of a pre-incubation for 3 minat 94° C., during which the EXPAND polymerase is spiked into the mix.The product is then amplified with 15 cycles of denaturation at 94° C.for 45 sec, annealing at 70° C. for 30 sec, and elongation at 72° C. for1.5 min. The annealing temperature is decreased by 1° C. per cycle foreach of the previous 15 cycles. An additional 15 cycles followed,consisting of 94° C. for 45 sec, 55° C. for 30 sec, and 72° C. for 1.5min, followed by a 7 min hold at 72° C.

A mature S8 Brassica GMT coding sequence is amplified from pMON67170using the synthetic oligonucleotide primers: #16765 (SEQ ID NO: 59) and#16654 (SEQ ID NO: 60).

A mature P4 Brassica GMT coding sequence is amplified from pMON67159using the synthetic oligonucleotide primers: #16765 (SEQ ID NO: 59) and#16654 (SEQ ID NO: 60).

A mature Cuphea pulcherrima GMT coding sequence is amplified frompMON67158 using the synthetic oligonucleotide primers: #16763 (SEQ IDNO: 61) and #16659 (SEQ ID NO: 62).

A mature Gossypium hirsutum GMT coding sequence is amplified frompMON67160 using the synthetic oligonucleotide primers: #16764 (SEQ IDNO: 63) and #16682 (SEQ ID NO: 64).

A mature Tagetes erecta GMT coding sequence is amplified from the ESTclone LIB3100-001-Q1-M1-E2 using the synthetic oligonucleotide primers:#16766 (SEQ ID NO: 65) and #16768 (SEQ ID NO: 66).

A mature Zea mays GMT coding region is amplified from the EST cloneLIB3689-262-Q1-K1-D6 using the synthetic oligonucleotide primers: 5′GGGGAC AAG TTT GTA CAA AAA AGC AGG CTT AGA AGG AGA TAG AAC CAT GGC CTC GTCGAC GGC TCA GGC CC3′ (SEQ ID NO: 73) and 5′GGG GAC CAC TTT GTA CAA GAAAGC TGG GTC CTG CAG GCT ACG CGG CTC CAG GCT TGC GAC AG (SEQ ID NO: 74).

A GMT coding region from Nostoc punctiforme (ATCC 29133) is amplifiedfrom genomic DNA. Genomic DNA is isolated from 3 day cultures of thecyanobacteria according to the procedure of Chisholm (CYANONEWS, Vol. 6.No. 3 (1990)). Cultures are centrifuged and the supernatent discarded.Pellets are suspended in 400 μl TES (TES: 2.5 ml of 1 M Tris, pH 8.5; 5ml of 5 M NaCl; 5 ml of 500 mM EDTA, bring volume to 500 ml.) To thesuspended pellet, 100 μl lysozyme (50 mg/ml) is added and the suspensionincubated for 15 minutes at 37° C. with occasional mixing. To this, 50μl sarkosyl (10%) is added. Protein is extracted by adding 600 μl phenoland incubating at room temperature with gentle shaking. The phases areseparated by centrifugation and the aqueous phase is transferred to anew tube. RNase is added to a final concentration of 1.0 mg/ml and thesolution is incubated for 15 minutes at 37° C. To this solution 100 μlNaCl (5 M), 100 μl CTAB/NaCl (CTAB/NaCl: To 80 ml of water, add 4.1 g ofNaCl, then 10 g CTAB, heat to 65° C. to dissolve, bring volume to 100ml), and 600 μl chloroform are added and the solution incubated 15minutes at room temperature with gentle shaking. The phases areseparated by centrifugation and the aqueous phase is transferred to anew tube. 700 μl isopropanol is added to precipitate DNA. The sample iscentrifuged for 15 minutes at 14,000 rpms in a micro-centrifuge topellet genomic DNA. The pellet is rinsed with 70% ethanol, dried brieflyin a SPEEDVAC and the genomic DNA is suspended in 100 μl TE. DNAconcentration, as determined by spectrophotometry, is 79 μg/ml.

Nostoc GMT amplification reactions contained 79 ng genonic DNA, 2.5 μl20×dNTPs 2.5 μl of each of the following primers: 5′GGG GAC AAG TTT GTACAA AAA AGC AGG CTT AGA AGG AGA TAG AAC CAT GAG TGC AAC ACT TTA CCA GCAAAT TC 3′ (SEQ ID NO: 67) and 5′GGG GAC CAC TTT GTA CAA GAA AGC TGG GTCCTA CTA CTT ATT GCC GCA CAG TAA GC 3′ (SEQ ID NO: 68), 5 μl 10×PCRbuffer 2 or 3, and 0.75 μl EXPAND High Fidelity DNA Polymerase. PCRconditions for amplification are as follows: 1 cycle of 94° C. for 2minutes, 10 cycles of 94° C.-15 seconds; 55° C.-30 seconds; and 72°C.-1.5 minutes, 15 cycles of 94° C.-15 seconds; 55° C.-30 seconds; and72° C.-1.5 minutes adding 5 seconds to the 72° C. extension with eachcycle, 1 cycle of 72° C. for 7 minutes. After amplification, samples arepurified using a Qiagen PCR cleanup column, suspended in 30 μl water and10 μl are visualized on an agarose gel.

GMT and MT1 coding sequences are amplified from genomic DNA from thecyanobacterium Anabaena species (ATCC 27893). DNA used for PCRamplification of Anabaena GMT and MT1 is isolated by collecting pelletsfrom 3 day old cyanobacteria cultures by centrifugation. The pellet iswashed with 1 ml PBS to remove media. The suspension is centrifuged andthe supernatent is discarded. The pellet is resuspended in 1 ml of waterand boiled for 10 minutes. Anabaena amplification reactions contained 10μl boiled Anabaena extract, 2.5 μl 20× dNTPs 2.5 μl of each primer, 5 μl10× PCR buffer 2 or 3, and 0.75 μl EXPAND High Fidelity DNA Polymerase.PCR conditions for amplification are as follows: 1 cycle of 94° C. for 2minutes, 10 cycles of 94° C.-15 seconds; 55° C.-30 seconds; and 72°C.-1.5 minutes, 15 cycles of 94° C.-15 seconds; 55° C.-30 seconds; and72° C.-1.5 minutes adding 5 seconds to the 72° C. extension with eachcycle, 1 cycle of 72° C. for 7 minutes. After amplification, samples arepurified using a Qiagen PCR cleanup column, suspended in 30 μl water and10 μl are visualized on an agarose gel.

Anabaena species GMT coding sequence is amplified using the syntheticoligonucleotide primers: 5′GGG GAC AAG TTT GTA CAA AAA AGC AGG CTT AGAAGG AGA TAG AAC CAT GAG TGC AAC ACT TTA CCA ACA AAT TCA G 3′ (SEQ ID NO:69) and 5′GGG GAC CAC TTT GTA CAA GAA AGC TGG GTC CTA TCA CTT ATC CCCACA AAG CAA CC 3′ (SEQ ID NO: 70).

Anabaena species MT1 coding sequence is amplified using the syntheticoligonucleotide primers: 5′GGG GAC AAG TTT GTA CAA AAA AGC AGG CTT AGAAGG AGA TAG AAC CAT GAG TTG GTT GTT TTC TAC ACT GG 3′ (SEQ ID NO: 71)and 5′GGG GAC CAC TTT GTA CAA GAA AGC TGG GTC CTA TTA CTT TTG AGC AACCTT GAT CG3′ (SEQ ID NO: 72).

The resulting PCR products are subcloned into pDONR™201 (LifeTechnologies, A Division of Invitrogen Corp., Rockville, Md.) using theGATEWAY cloning system (Life Technologies, A Division of InvitrogenCorp., Rockville, Md.) and labeled pMON67180 (mature S8 Brassica napusGMT), pMON68757 (mature P4 Brassica napus GMT), pMON68755 (mature Cupheapulcherrima GMT), pMON68756 (mature Gossypium hirsulum GMT), pMON68758(mature Tagetes erecta GMT), pMON67182 (mature Zea mays GMT), pMON67520(Nostoc punctiforme GMT), pMON67518 (Anabaena species GMT), andpMON67517 (Anabaena species MT1). Double stranded DNA sequence isobtained to verify that no errors are introduced by the PCRamplification.

For functional testing GMT and MT1 sequences are then recombined behindthe T7 promoter in the prokaryotic expression vector pET-DEST42 (FIG. 1)(Life Technologies, A Division of Invitrogen Corp., Rockville, Md.)using the GATEWAY cloning system (Life Technologies, A Division ofInvitrogen Corp., Rockville, Md.) according to the manufacturer'sprotocol. The resulting expression vectors are labeled pMON67181 (matureS8 Brassica napus GMT), pMON67172 (mature P4 Brassica napus GMT),pMON67173 (mature Cuphea pulcherrima GMT), pMON67171 (mature Gossypiumhirsutum GMT), pMON67177 (mature Tagetes erecta GMT), pMON67176 (Nostocpunctiforme GMT), pMON67175 (Anabaena species GMT), pMON67174 (Anabaenaspecies MT1), and pMON67183 (Zea mays GMT) (see also table 6).

TABLE 6 Bacterial expression vectors for functional testing ofmethyltransferases Construct I.D. Gene Source of Gene ModificationspMON67171 GMT Gossypium hirsutum Mature protein pMON67172 GMT Brassicanapus P4 Mature protein pMON67173 GMT Cuphea pulcherrima Mature proteinpMON67174 MT1 Anabaena pMON67175 GMT Anabaena pMON67176 GMT NostocpMON67177 GMT Tagetes erecta Mature protein pMON67181 GMT Brassica napusS8 Mature protein pMON67183 GMT Zea mays Mature protein

EXAMPLE 4

Bacterial expression plasmids listed in Table 6 are transformed intoexpression host cells (BL21 (DE3) (Stratagene, La Jolla, Calif.)) priorto growth and induction. A 100 mL LB-culture with the appropriateselection antibiotic (mg/mL carbenicillin) is inoculated with anovernight starter culture of cell transformants to an OD₆₀₀ of 0.1 andgrown at 25° C., 250 rpm to an OD₆₀₀ of 0.6. The cells are then inducedby adding IPTG to a final concentration of 0.4 mM and incubating forthree hours at 25° C. and 200 rpm. Cultures are transferred to 250 mLpolypropylene centrifuge tubes, chilled on ice for five minutes, andharvested by centrifugation at 5000×g for ten minutes. The cell pelletis stored at −80° C. after thoroughly aspirating off the supernatant.

Methyltransferase activity is measured in vitro using a modification ofthe method described by d'Harlingue et al., 1985 d'Harlingue and Camara,J. Biol. Chem. 260(28):15200-3 (1985). The cell pellet is thawed on iceand resuspended in 4 mL of extraction buffer (10 mM HEPES-KOH pH 7.8, 5mM DTT (dithiothriotol), 1 mM AEBSF (4-(2-aminoethyl)benzenesulfonylfluoride), 0.1 μM aprotinin, 1 μg/mL leupeptin). Cells are disruptedusing a French press. Each cell suspension is run through the pressurecell twice at 20,000 psi. Triton x-100 is added to a final concentrationof 1% and the cell homogenate is incubated on ice for one hour beforecentrifugation at 5000 g for ten minutes at 4° C. The supernatant istransferred to fresh eppendorf tubes for methyltransferase activityanalysis.

Enzyme assays are performed in assay buffer containing 50 mM Tris-HCl pH7.0 (pH 8.0 for MT1), 5 mM DTT, 100 μM substrate (γ-tocopherol orγ-tocotrienol for GMT (Calbiochem-Novabiochem Corporation, San Diego,Calif.); 2-methylphytylplastoquinol (racemic mixture)(2-methylphytylplastoquinol and 2,3-dimethyl-5-phytylplastoquinol aresynthesized as described by Soll and Schultz 1980 (Soll, J., Schultz,G., 1980, 2-methyl-6-phytylplastoquinol and2,3-dimethyl-5-phytylplastoquinol as precursors of tocopherol synthesisin spinach chloroplasts, Phytochemistry 19:215-218) for MT1 and TMT2),0.1 μCi ¹⁴C-SAM (48 μCi/μmole, ICN Biomedicals, Aurora, Ohio), and 0.5%TWEEN 80 (for substrate solubility) in a final volume of 1 mL. Reactionsare prepared in 10 mL polypropylene culture tubes by first adding thesubstrate from concentrated stocks dissolved in hexane and evaporatingoff the hexane under nitrogen gas flow. TWEEN 80 is added directly tothe substrate before adding the remainder of the assay buffer less theSAM. Crude cell extract is added to the assay mix in 50 μL volumes andthe timed reactions are initiated by adding SAM. Reactions are vortexedthoroughly to dissolve all of the detergent into the mix and thenincubated at 30° C. in the dark for 30 minutes.

The reactions are transferred to 15 mL screw-capped glass tubes withteflon-coated caps prior to quenching and phase extracting with 4 mL of2:1 chloroform/methanol containing 1 mg/mL of butylated hydroxytoluene(BHT for stability of the end product). These are then vortexed for atleast 30 seconds and centrifuged at 800×g for 5 minutes to separate thelayers. If necessary, 1 mL of 0.9% NaCl is added to improve the phaseseparation (emulsions may form because the enzyme is added as a crudeextract). The organic phase (bottom layer) of each phase extraction istransferred to a fresh 15 mL glass tube and evaporated completely undernitrogen gas flow. The reaction products are then dissolved in 200 μL ofethanol containing 1% pyrogalol and vortexed for at least 30 seconds.This is filtered through a 0.2 μm filter (WHATMAN PTFE) into glassinserts contained within light protected LC vials for HPLC analysis.

The HPLC (HP 1100) separation is carried out using a normal phase column(Agilent ZORBAX Sil, 5 μm, 4.6×250 mm) with 1.5 mL/minute isocratic flowof 10% methyl-t-butyl-ether in hexane over a period of 14 minutes.Samples are injected onto the column in 50 μl volumes. Quantitation of¹⁴C-labeled reaction products is performed using a flow scintillationcounter (Packard 500TR). Methyltransferase activities are calculatedbased on a standard curve of D-α-[5-methyl-¹⁴C]-tocopherol(Amersham-Pharmacia, 57 mCi/mmol).

The assay results confirm γ-tocopherol methyltransferase activity forall GMT gene candidates listed in table 6, except for the Brassica P4gene (FIG. 17).

The MT1 assay results (FIG. 33) indicated 2-methylphytylplastoquinolmethyltransferase activity with the Anabaena MT1 expression product.FIGS. 18, 19, and 20 represent HPLC chromatograms of the MT1 assaycarried out with recombinant expressed Anabaena MT1, with recombinantAnabaena MT1 without 2-methylphytylplastoquinol substrate, and an assayperformed with pea chloroplast extract as a positive control for the MT1assay, respectively.

The Anabaena, corn, and cotton GMTs are chosen for the purpose ofcomparing enzymes from microbial and monocotyledon sources versusdicotyledon plant sources for methyltransferase activity withγ-tocotrienol. Assays are run in duplicate with γ-tocopherol assays runin parallel as controls. In both cases 100 μM of substrate is used, withthe substrate as the only difference in assay conditions. The monocotGMT showed comparable methyltransferase activity with γ-tocopherol andγ-tocotrienol. In contrast the bacterial and the dicot GMT aresubstantially less active with γ-tocotrienol. The results of thisexperiment are summarized in FIG. 34.

EXAMPLE 5

Seed specific expression of GMT in Brassica is obtained by linking theArabidopsis thaliana, ecotype Columbia gene to the napin promoter asdescribed here. Poly A+ RNA is isolated from Arabidopsis thaliana,ecotype Columbia using an adapted biotin/streptavadin procedure based ona mRNA Capture Kit” (Roche Molecular Biochemicals, Indianapolis, Ind.).Young leaf tissue is homogenized in CTAB buffer (50 mM Tris-HCl pH9,0.8M NaCl, 0.5% CTAB, 10 mM EDTA), extracted with chloroform andpelleted. As set forth in the manufacturer's instructions, the solublephase is hybridized to biotin-labeled oligo-dT, immobilized onstreptavadin-coated PCR tubes and washed. First strand cDNA issynthesized using the “1^(st) strand cDNA synthesis kit for RT-PCR”(Roche Molecular Biochemicals, Indianapolis, Ind.). cDNA synthesis isperformed according to the manufacturer's protocol and followed by RNasedigestion (0.5 units RNase in 48 μl for 30 min.).

Arabidopsis thaliana, ecotype Columbia is amplified using primers #16562Arab GMT Forward-Not 5′ GCG GCC GCA CAA TGA AAG CAA CTC TAG CAG CAC CCTC3′ (SEQ ID NO: 77) and #16563 Arab GMT Reverse-Sse 5′ CCT GCA GGT TAGAGT GGC TTC TGG CAA GTG ATG 3′ (SEQ ID NO: 78) and the “EXPAND HighFidelity PCR System (Roche Molecular Biochemicals, Indianapolis, Ind.).A GMT gene is PCR-amplified for 30 cycles using a “touchdown” cyclingprofile: 3 min incubation at 94° C., followed by 15 cycles of 45 secondsdenaturation at 94° C., 30 seconds annealing at 60° C. and 2 minextensions at 72° C. Primers are designed to add a NotI/Kozak site and a3′ Sse83871 site.

The PCR product is desalted using a Pharmacia Microspin S-400 HR Column(Pharmacia, Uppsala, Sweden). The purified fragment is inserted intopCR2.1 using a TOPO TA Cloning Kit (Invitrogen, Carlsbad, Calif.)resulting in the formation of pMON67155. The nucleotide sequence of theinsert, Arabidopsis thaliana, ecotype Columbia GMT is confirmed by DNAsequencing. The GMT insert is excised from pMON67155 by NotI/Sse8371digestion. Restriction enzymes are removed using StrataClean Resin(Stratagene, La Jolla, Calif.) and passed through a Microspin S-400 HRColumn (Pharmacia, Uppsala, Sweden). The fragment is ligated intoNotI/Sse83871 digested, identically treated pMON11307, resulting in theformation of the binary vector pMON67157 (FIG. 13).

The plant binary construct described above is used in Brassica napusplant transformation to direct the expression of thegamma-methyltransferases in the embryo. The vector is transformed intoABI strain Agrobacterium cells by the method of Holsters et al., Mol.Gen. Genet. 163:181-187 (1978). Brassica plants may be obtained byAgrobacterium-mediated transformation as described by Radke et al. PlantCell Reports 11: 499-505 (1992) and WO 00/61771. The tocopherol leveland composition of the seed from transgenic plants is analyzed using themethod set forth in example 6.

Results of Brassica transformation are shown in FIG. 24, which is agraph representing the seed α-tocopherol levels for varioustransformants. Table 7 represents transformation data from variouslines.

TABLE 7 ng α ng β ng γ ng δ ng total toco./mg toco./mg toco./mg toco./mgtoco./mg % Avg. % seed seed seed seed seed Line Number Alpha AlphaDescription 165.07 0.00 139.34 5.33 309.74 Control - Empty Vector R153.3 44.1 Control 102.41 0.00 189.34 3.76 295.50 Control R1 34.7 Control126.90 0.00 229.27 6.64 362.81 Control R1 35.0 Control 139.09 0.00230.64 5.97 375.70 Control R1 37.0 Control 137.88 0.00 173.73 4.36315.97 Control R1 43.6 Control 203.16 0.00 126.41 2.74 332.31 Control R161.1 Control 113.75 0.00 187.68 5.86 307.29 Arabidopsis GMT in Canola R137.0 87.1 PMON67157-10 197.02 0.00 137.48 4.50 338.99 Arabidopsis GMT inCanola R1 58.1 PMON67157-9 201.11 0.00 134.65 6.52 342.28 ArabidopsisGMT in Canola R1 58.8 PMON67157-5 212.78 0.00 92.97 3.36 309.11Arabidopsis GMT in Canola R1 68.8 PMON67157-4 240.49 0.00 53.44 1.77295.70 Arabidopsis GMT in Canola R1 81.3 PMON67157-6 231.63 0.00 49.460.00 281.09 Arabidopsis GMT in Canola R1 82.4 PMON67157-25 234.90 0.0045.91 1.03 281.84 Arabidopsis GMT in Canola R1 83.3 PMON67157-20 334.070.00 57.69 1.65 393.41 Arabidopsis GMT in Canola R1 84.9 PMON67157-27345.00 0.00 36.75 2.23 383.99 Arabidopsis GMT in Canola R1 89.8PMON67157-21 286.02 0.00 1.04 1.61 288.67 Arabidopsis GMT in Canola R199.1 PMON67157-2 387.23 0.00 0.16 1.64 389.03 Arabidopsis GMT in CanolaR1 99.5 PMON67157-3 322.59 0.00 0.68 0.66 323.93 Arabidopsis GMT inCanola R1 99.6 PMON67157-8 331.27 0.00 0.46 0.61 332.34 Arabidopsis GMTin Canola R1 99.7 PMON67157-1 322.34 0.00 0.00 0.62 322.97 ArabidopsisGMT in Canola R1 99.8 PMON67157-24 316.73 0.00 0.51 0.00 317.24Arabidopsis GMT in Canola R1 99.8 PMON67157-13 357.05 0.00 0.24 0.00357.29 Arabidopsis GMT in Canola R1 99.9 PMON67157-17 310.97 0.00 0.170.00 311.13 Arabidopsis GMT in Canola R1 99.9 PMON67157-22 324.07 0.000.00 0.00 324.07 Arabidopsis GMT in Canola R1 100.0 PMON67157-23 367.840.00 0.00 0.00 367.84 Arabidopsis GMT in Canola R1 100.0 PMON67157-28438.54 0.00 0.00 0.00 438.54 Arabidopsis GMT in Canola R1 100.0PMON67157-30

EXAMPLE 6

Seed specific expression of GMT in soy is obtained by linking theArabidopsis thaliana, ecotype Columbia GMT gene with different types ofseed specific promoters as described here. Total RNA is isolated fromArabidopsis leaf tissue (ecotype Columbia) using the Qiagen “RNEASYplant mini kit” (Qiagen Inc., Valencia, Calif.). First strand cDNAsynthesized using the “1^(st) strand cDNA synthesis kit for RT-PCR” fromBoehringer Mannheim. RNA isolation and cDNA synthesis is performedaccording to the manufacturer protocols.

The Arabidopsis GMT is amplified using primers “GMT-ara 5′ CAT GCC ATGGGA ATG AAA GCA ACT CTA GCA G” (SEQ ID NO: 75) and “GMT-ara 3′ GTC AGAATT CTT ATT AGA GTG GCT TCT GGC AAG” (SEQ ID NO: 76) and the BoehringerMannheim “EXPAND High Fidelity PCR System”. The GMT gene isPCR-amplified by 30 cycles under the following conditions: 5 minincubation at 95° C., followed by 30 cycles of 1 min at 95° C., 1 minannealing at 58° C. and 2 min extension at 72° C. These reactions arefollowed by 5 min incubation at 72° C. The primers are designed to add amethionine and a glycin to the N-terminus of the GMT protein.

The PCR products are EcoRI and NcoI digested and gel purified using theQiagen “QIAQUICK Gel Extraction Kit” (Qiagen Inc., Valencia, Calif.).Purified fragments are ligated into EcoRI/NocI digested and gel purifiedpET30 (Novagen, Madison, Wis.) and pSE280 (Invitrogen, Carlsbad, Calif.)resulting in the formation of pMON26592 (FIG. 3) and pMON26593 (FIG. 4),respectively. Subsequently the Arabidopsis GMT sequence is confirmed.During the sequencing procedure it is found that the cloned sequencefrom the Columbia ecotype exhibited two nucleotide changes compared tothe Arabidopsis thaliana GMT sequence published in WO 99/04622 (position345, change from C to T; position 523, substitution from T to G). Whilethe first substitution is a silent mutation, the second nucleotidechange resulted in an amino acid change from serine to alanine.

For generation of a GMT plant transformation vector under p7S promotercontrol, a GMT is excised as a BglII/EcoRI fragment from pMON26592, gelpurified, and cloned into a BglII/EcoRI digested and gel purified vectorcontaining a p7S expression cassette resulting in the formation of theshuttle vector pMON36500 (FIG. 6). The p7S::GMT_(At) expression cassetteis excised from pMON36500 by PstI digest, the ends are filled in by T4DNA polymerase treatment, gel purified, and cloned into SmaI digested,alkaline phosphatase treated and gel purified pMON38207R, resulting inthe formation of the binary vector pMON36503.

An NcoI/EcoRI digested, gel purified GMT excised from pMON26592 isligated into an NcoI/EcoRI digested vector harboring a pARC5-1expression cassette, resulting in the formation of the shuttle vectorpMON36502. The pARC5-1::GMTAt expression cassette is excised frompMON35502 by NotI digest, blunt ends are generated by treatment withKlenow fragment, the fragment is gel purified, and ligated into Sma Idigested, alkaline phosphatase treated and gel purified pMON38207R. Theresulting binary vector is designated pMON36505.

An arcelin 5 promoter harbors 6 ATG start codons at the 5′ sequencelocated in different reading frames (Goosens et al., Plant Physiol.(1999), 120(4), 1095-1104, Goosens et al., FEBS Lett. (1999), 456(1),160-164.). To decrease the risk of interference of these start codonsduring gene expression, 4 of these putative translational start sitesare deleted. Deletion of 4 ATG codons is achieved by PCR, using primersParc5′ (5′-CCA CGT GAG CTC CTT CCT CTT CCC-3′) (SEQ ID NO: 79) andParc3′ (5′-GTG CCA TGG CAG ATC TGA TGA TGG ATT GAT GGA-3′) (SEQ ID NO:80). Primer Parc3′ is designed to hybridize to the Arcelin 5 promotersequence at the translational start site and delete 4 of the 6 ATGcodons. PCR is performed using pMON55524 (FIG. 5) as template DNA andthe Boehringer Mannheim PCR Core Kit in 30 PCR cycles under thefollowing conditions: 5 min incubation at 95° C., followed by 30 cyclesof 1 min at 95° C., 1 min annealing at 60° C. and 40 second extension at72° C. These reactions are followed by 5 min incubation at 72° C. Theresulting approximately 360 bp PCR product is digested with Sa/I andNcoI, gel purified and cloned into SalI/NcoI digested and gel purifiedpMON55524, resulting in the formation of pMON36501 (FIG. 7). A DNAsequence of the cloned PCR product is confirmed by DNA sequencing. A GMTexpression cassette using the modified promoter is assembled by ligatingthe backbone of SmaI/NcoI digested and gel purified pMON36501 with aGMTAt::Arcelin 5 3′ terminator fusion obtained from SmaI/NcoI digestedgel purified pMON36502 (FIG. 8). The resulting shuttle vector isdesignated pMON36504 (FIG. 10). A binary vector (pMON36506) harboring aGMT expression cassette under the control of the modified arcelin 5promoter is generated by cloning the NotI digested, Klenow fragmenttreated (for blunt end generation), gel purified GMT expression cassetteinto gel purified SmaI digested alkaline phosphatase treated, and gelpurified pMON38207R vector backbone (5′-GAG TGA TGG TTA ATG CAT GAA TGCATG ATC AGA TCT GCC ATG GTC CGT CCT-3′ (SEQ ID NO: 81) (original DNAsequence at the translational start site of the Arcelin 5promoter—pARC5-1) (5′-GAG TGA TGG TTA ATC CAT CAA TCC ATC ATC AGA TCTGCC ATG GTC CGT CCT-3′) (SEQ ID NO: 82) (DNA sequence at thetranslational start site of the mutated Arcelin 5 promoter—pARC5-1M))

GMT expression vectors pMON36503 (FIG. 9), pMON36505 (FIG. 11) andpMON36506 (FIG. 12) are transformed into the soybean line A3244 usingAgrobacterium mediated transformation. See, for example the methodsdescribed by Fraley et al., Bio/Technology 3:629-635 (1985) and Rogerset al., Methods Enzymol. 153: 253-277 (1987). Ten bulked seeds from theR₁ generation are ground and the resulting soy meal is used fortocopherol analysis. Twenty five to forty mg of the soy meal is weighedinto a 2 mL micro tube, and 500 μl 1% pyrogallol (Sigma Chemicals, St.Louis, Mo.) in ethanol containing 5 μg/mL tocol, is added to the tube.The sample is shaken twice for 45 seconds in a FASTPREP (Bio101/Savant)using speed 6.5. The extract is then filtered (Gelman PTFE acrodisc 0.2μm, 13 mm syringe filters, Pall Gelman Laboratory Inc, Ann Arbor, Mich.)into an autosampler tube. HPLC is performed on a ZORBAX silica HPLCcolumn, 4.6 mm×250 mm (5 μm) with a fluorescent detection using aHewlett Packard HPLC (Agilent Technologies). Sample excitation isperformed at 290 nm, and emission is monitored at 336 nm. Tocopherolsare separated with a hexane methyl-t-butyl ether gradient using aninjection volume of 20 μl, a flow rate of 1.5 ml/min, and a run time of12 min (40° C.). Tocopherol concentration and composition is calculatedbased on standard curves for α, β, γ and δ-tocopherol using Chemstationsoftware (Agilent Technologies, Palo Alto, Calif.). As shown in FIGS.14-16, several lines from each construct completely or substantiallyconverted δ and γ-tocopherol, leaving α and β-tocopherol as the onlydetectable tocopherol isomers.

EXAMPLE 7

Canola, Brassica napus, or soybean plants are transformed with a varietyof DNA constructs using Agrobacterium mediated transformation. Two setsof DNA constructs are produced. The first set of constructs are “singlegene constructs”. Each of the following genes is inserted into aseparate plant DNA construct under the control of a seed specificpromoter such as the arcelin 5, 7S α or napin promoter (Kridl et al.,Seed Sci. Res. 1:209:219 (1991) (Keegstra, Cell 56(2):247-53 (1989);Nawrath, et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 91:12760-12764 (1994)): abifunctional prephenate dehydrogenase such as the E. herbicola or the E.coli tyrA gene (Xia et al., J. Gen. Microbiol. 138:1309-1316 (1992)), aphytylprenyltransferase such as the slr1736 (in Cyanobase(www.kazusa.or.jp/cyanobase)) or the ATPT2 gene (Smith et al., Plant J.11: 83-92 (1997)), a 1-deoxyxylulose 5-phosphate synthase such as the E.coli dxs gene (Lois et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 95(5):2105-2110 (1998)), a 1-deoxyxylulose 5-phosphate reductoisomerase(dxr) gene (Takahashi et al. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 95 (17),9879-9884 (1998)), a p-hydroxyphenylpyruvate dioxygenase, such as theArabidopsis thaliana HPPD gene (Norris et al., Plant Physiol.117:1317-1323 (1998)), a geranylgeranylpyrophosphate synthase gene suchas the Arabidopsis thaliana GGPPS gene (Bartley and Scolnik, PlantPhysiol. 104:1469-1470 (1994)), a transporter such as the AANT1 gene(Saint Guily, et al., Plant Physiol, 100(2):1069-1071 (1992)), a GMTgene, an MT 1 gene, and a tocopherol cyclase such as the slr1737 gene(in Cyanobase (www.kazusa.or.jp/cyanobase) or its Arabidopsis ortholog(PIR_T04448)), a isopentenylpyrophosphate isomerase gene (IDI), and anantisense construct for homogentisic acid dioxygenase (Sato et al., J.DNA Res. 7 (1):31-63 (2000))). The products of the genes are targeted tothe plastid by natural plastid target peptides present in the transgene, or by an encoded plastid target peptide such as CTP1. Eachconstruct is transformed into at least one canola, Brassica napus andsoybean plant. Plants expressing each of these genes are selected toparticipate in additional crosses. Crosses are carried out for eachspecies to generate transgenic plants having one or more of thefollowing combination of introduced genes: tyrA, slr1736, ATPT2, dxs,dxr, GGPPS, HPPD, GMT, MT1, AANT1, slr1737, IDI, and an antisenseconstruct for homogentisic acid dioxygenase.

The tocopherol composition and level in each plant generated by thecrosses (including all intermediate crosses) is also analyzed. Progenyof the transformants from these constructs will be crossed with eachother to stack the additional genes to reach the desired level oftocopherol.

A second set of DNA constructs is generated and referred to as the“multiple gene constructs.” The multiple gene constructs containmultiple genes each under the control of a seed specific promoter suchas the arcelin 5, 7S α or napin promoter (Kridl et al., Seed Sci. Res.1:209:219 (1991) (Keegstra, Cell 56(2):247-53 (1989); Nawrath, et al.,Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 91:12760-12764 (1994)) and the geneproducts of each of the genes are targeted to the plastid by an encodedplastid target peptide. The multiple gene construct can have two or moreof the following genes: tyrA, slr1736, or ATPT2, dxs, dxr, GGPPS, HPPD,GMT, MT1, AANT1, slr1737, or its plant ortholog, IDI, and an antisenseconstruct for homogentisic acid dioxygenase.

Each construct is then transformed into at least one canola, Brassicanapus or soybean plant. The tocopherol composition and level in eachplant is also analyzed using the method set forth in example 6. Progenyof the transformants from these constructs are crossed with each otherto stack the additional genes to reach the desired level of tocopherol.

EXAMPLE 8

Expression of the Anabaena MT1 coding sequence in Arabidopsis is carriedout. The Anabaena putative-MT1 coding sequence is amplified from genomicDNA derived from 3-day old Anabaena sp. (ATCC 27893) cultures. Toisolate DNA, cultures are spun and the pellet washed with 1 ml PBS toremove media. Subsequently, the suspension is centrifuged and thesupernatant is discarded. The resulting pellet is resuspended in 1 ml ofwater and is boiled for 10 minutes. Anabaena DNA amplification reactionscontain 10 μL boiled Anabaena extract, the EXPAND High Fidelity PCRSystem and the oligonucleotide primers: 5′ GGG GAC AAG TTT GTA CAA AAAAGC AGG CTT AGA AGG AGA TAG AAC CAT GAG TTG GTT GTT TTC TAC ACT GG 3′(SEQ ID NO: 83) and 5′ GGG GAC CAC TTT GTA CAA GAA AGC TGG GTC CTA TTACTT TTG AGC AAC CTT GAT CG3′ (SEQ ID NO: 84). The reaction mix ispre-incubated for 5 minutes at 95° C., during which time the polymeraseis spiked in. The product is then amplified for 15 cycles of 94° C. for30 sec, 60° C. for 30 sec, and 72° C. for 1.5 minutes each. During thecycling, the annealing temperature is decreased by 1° C. per cycle foreach of the 15 cycles. An additional 15 cycles follow, consisting of 94°C. for 30 seconds, 45° C. for 30 seconds, and 72° C. for 1.5 minute,each followed by a 7 minute hold at 72° C.

After amplification, PCR products are purified using a Qiagen PCRcleanup column (Qiagen Company, Valencia, Calif.) and subcloned intoPDONR™201 using the GATEWAY cloning system (Life Technologies,Rockville, Md.) to generate pMON67517. Sequences are confirmed by DNAsequencing using standard methodologies and then cloned into the napincassette derived from pCGN3223 (Kridl et al., Seed Sci. Res. 1:209-219(1991)) in a GATEWAY compatible binary destination vector containing theBAR selectable marker under the control of the 35S promoter. The MT1gene is cloned in as a translational fusion with the encoded plastidtarget peptide CTP1 (WO 00/61771) to target this protein to the plastidfrom pMON16600. The resultant expression vector (pMON67211) iselectroporated into ABI strain Agrobacterium cells and grown understandard conditions (McBride et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA91:7301-7305 (1994)) and vector fidelity is reconfirmed by restrictionanalysis. Transformation of pMON67211 into wild-type Arabidopsis,accession Columbia, as well as three high δ-tocopherol mutant lines(hdt2, hdt10, hdt16) is accomplished using the dipping method (Cloughand Bent, Plant J. 16(6):735-43 (1998)) and T₀ plants are grown in agrowth chamber under 16 h light, 19° C. T₁ seeds are sprinkled directlyonto soil, vernalized at 4° C. in the absence of light for 4 days, thentransferred to 21° C., 16 hours light. Transgenic plants are selected byspraying with a 1:200 dilution of Finale (AgrEvo Environmental Health,Montvale, N.J.) at 7 days and 14 days after seeding. Transformed plantsare grown to maturity and the T₂ seed is analyzed for tocopherol contentusing normal phase HPLC (Savidge, B. et al., Plant Physiology129:321-332 (2002)).

Two lines of pMON67211 in the hdt2 mutant line (67211-6 and 67211-12)are taken forward to the next generation for examination of phenotype inT₃ seed. In doing so, T₂ seeds are sprinkled directly onto soil,vernalized at 4° C. in the absence of light for 4 days, then transferredto 21° C., 16 hours light. Transgenic plants are selected by sprayingwith a 1:200 dilution of Finale (AgrEvo Environmental Health, Montvale,N.J.) at 7 days and 14 days after seeding. Transformed plants are grownto maturity (9 plants from line 6, 9 plants from line 12, and 4 hdt2mutant controls in one flat) and the T₃ seed is analyzed for tocopherolcontent using normal phase HPLC.

FIG. 25 shows the percent of seed 8-tocopherol in Arabidopsis T2 seedfrom lines expressing MT1 under the control of the napin promoter.

Table 8 below represents various data resulting from the abovetransformants.

TABLE 8 Alpha strategy R₂ Arabidopsis seed: CTP-MT1 HPLC sequence anddata folder SR022602 Sample Ng α ng γ ng δ ng total Sample wt. toco./mgtoco./mg toco./mg toco./mg % Avg. Name (mg) seed seed seed seed SerialNumber Pedigree Gen Delta Delta % 77 14 3.42 459.72 20.17 483.31 9979-9979 For 67211s 4.2 4.1 AT00002- 54:@.0008. 78 15 2.59 461.87 19.26483.73 9979- 9979 For 67211s 4.0 AT00002- 54:@.0009. 89 13 4.78 459.2116.34 480.33 AT_G193:@. PMON67211 T2 3.4 3.6 90 14 5.50 475.59 17.27498.35 AT_G194:@. PMON67211 T2 3.5 86 13 5.64 476.70 18.13 500.46AT_G190:@. PMON67211 T2 3.6 82 13 6.19 476.84 18.10 501.13 AT_G186:@.PMON67211 T2 3.6 88 14 7.13 477.51 19.27 503.91 AT_G192:@. PMON67211 T23.8 95 13 6.45 478.90 18.78 504.13 AT_G199:@. PMON67211 T2 3.7 85 115.67 480.31 19.62 505.60 AT_G189:@. PMON67211 T2 3.9 96 13 10.08 480.6818.69 509.45 AT_G200:@. PMON67211 T2 3.7 84 13 6.34 487.23 18.47 512.04AT_G188:@. PMON67211 T2 3.6 91 12 7.18 487.68 19.42 514.28 AT_G195:@.PMON67211 T2 3.8 87 14 4.45 492.16 19.92 516.52 AT_G191:@. PMON67211 T23.9 93 13 7.07 492.17 18.19 517.43 AT_G197:@. PMON67211 T2 3.5 92 137.12 493.27 19.77 520.15 AT_G196:@. PMON67211 T2 3.8 94 13 8.28 494.7918.04 521.11 AT_G198:@. PMON67211 T2 3.5 80 13 8.70 498.94 18.71 526.36AT_G184:@. PMON67211 T2 3.6 83 14 6.49 502.75 18.16 527.40 AT_G187:@.PMON67211 T2 3.4 81 12 6.75 505.87 18.84 531.45 AT_G185:@. PMON67211 T23.5 9 12 3.66 277.61 265.61 546.88 hdt2:0001. M5 48.6 48.1 10 10 5.62268.82 239.24 513.69 hdt2:0002. M5 46.6 11 13 4.80 266.70 250.79 522.29hdt2:0003. M5 48.0 12 12 6.34 281.87 271.70 559.90 hdt2:0004. M5 48.5 1312 4.75 277.59 266.87 549.21 hdt2:0005. M5 48.6 18 13 4.38 410.93 146.44561.74 67211-HDT2:0005. T2 26.1 18.9 20 12 5.53 421.63 133.57 560.7367211-HDT2:0007. T2 23.8 22 11 4.39 413.42 116.94 534.7567211-HDT2:0009. T2 21.9 17 12 5.31 425.83 114.16 545.3067211-HDT2:0004. T2 20.9 15 12 4.97 402.64 105.62 513.2367211-HDT2:0002. T2 20.6 27 13 4.74 434.37 112.96 552.0767211-HDT2:0014. T2 20.5 16 13 5.98 416.73 108.13 530.8467211-HDT2:0003. T2 20.4 14 12 7.07 431.05 107.70 545.8167211-HDT2:0001. T2 19.7 23 10 4.74 436.59 106.91 548.2467211-HDT2:0010. T2 19.5 26 12 6.89 424.31 104.39 535.5967211-HDT2:0013. T2 19.5 21 11 4.91 441.50 104.57 550.9867211-HDT2:0008. T2 19.0 28 12 4.40 493.29 87.63 585.32 67211-HDT2:0015.T2 15.0 24 13 4.20 452.86 74.83 531.89 67211-HDT2:0011. T2 14.1 25 135.20 510.41 72.70 588.31 67211-HDT2:0012. T2 12.4 19 11 5.58 545.6167.86 619.05 67211-HDT2:0006. T2 11.0 3 12.5 3.36 262.76 180.18 446.30hdt16:@.0007. Control M5 40.4 38.2 2 9.6 2.54 305.52 178.20 486.25hdt16:@.0005. Control M5 36.6 1 11.9 3.36 290.12 177.76 471.24hdt16:@.0003. Control M5 37.7 11 10.1 2.02 255.50 169.29 426.81AT_G58:@. PMON67211 T2 39.7 15.3 12 12.4 5.28 352.67 100.76 458.71AT_G59:@. PMON67211 T2 22.0 24 12.5 3.60 392.97 78.20 474.77 AT_G71:@.PMON67211 T2 16.5 14 12 3.90 380.29 72.98 457.18 AT_G61:@. PMON67211 T216.0 22 12.6 2.06 370.66 68.50 441.22 AT_G69:@. PMON67211 T2 15.5 1812.2 3.52 379.38 70.29 453.19 AT_G65:@. PMON67211 T2 15.5 15 13 5.67386.12 71.61 463.39 AT_G62:@. PMON67211 T2 15.5 21 11.3 3.86 405.9874.54 484.39 AT_G68:@. PMON67211 T2 15.4 25 12.6 6.42 408.38 74.56489.36 AT_G72:@. PMON67211 T2 15.2 19 12.5 3.95 412.64 72.24 488.84AT_G66:@. PMON67211 T2 14.8 20 12.7 2.99 431.01 65.65 499.66 AT_G67:@.PMON67211 T2 13.1 17 12.3 5.77 423.19 48.73 477.70 AT_G64:@. PMON67211T2 10.2 23 11.3 2.35 408.24 45.41 456.00 AT_G70:@. PMON67211 T2 10.0 1011.9 7.81 443.06 43.58 494.45 AT_G57:@. PMON67211 T2 8.8 13 12.6 3.64421.06 38.53 463.23 AT_G60:@. PMON67211 T2 8.3 16 12.9 3.76 430.69 37.10471.56 AT_G63:@. PMON67211 T2 7.9 33 13.2 4.32 356.41 71.85 432.59hdt10:@.0001. Control M6 16.6 9.6 34 13.1 5.73 469.11 12.79 487.62hdt10:@.0002. Control M6 2.6 56 13.3 4.77 361.67 63.37 429.82 AT_G48:@.PMON67211 T2 14.7 4.7 61 8.1 2.70 351.84 50.96 405.50 AT_G54:@.PMON67211 T2 12.6 54 12.2 5.66 432.55 41.60 479.81 AT_G46:@. PMON67211T2 8.7 59 13.9 5.18 416.88 38.34 460.40 AT_G52:@. PMON67211 T2 8.3 51 133.99 430.18 22.41 456.58 AT_G43:@. PMON67211 T2 4.9 58 12.2 4.88 463.3721.72 489.97 AT_G51:@. PMON67211 T2 4.4 52 13.4 5.34 442.72 18.24 466.31AT_G44:@. PMON67211 T2 3.9 64 12.6 5.50 477.62 10.72 493.84 AT_G117:@.PMON67211 T2 2.2 57 12.7 6.27 467.48 9.12 482.88 AT_G50:@. PMON67211 T21.9 50 13.1 4.83 450.16 7.94 462.93 AT_G42:@. PMON67211 T2 1.7 63 12.84.78 445.42 7.81 458.00 AT_G56:@. PMON67211 T2 1.7 55 12.6 8.32 460.077.58 475.98 AT_G47:@. PMON67211 T2 1.6 53 13.3 6.43 417.71 6.76 430.91AT_G45:@. PMON67211 T2 1.6 62 12.6 5.36 473.04 6.88 485.28 AT_G55:@.PMON67211 T2 1.4 60 12.9 4.87 463.45 5.68 474.00 AT_G53:@. PMON67211 T21.2

FIG. 26 shows T₃ seed δ-tocopherol percentage from two lines expressingMT1 under the control of the napin promoter (pMON67211). Table 9 belowshows T₃ seed data from hdt2 mutant lines transformed with pMON67211.

TABLE 9 Crop Biotype Pedigree mp:aT mp:gT mp:dT total toco. % delta GenAT SEED hdt2:@.0001.0001. 2 280 190 472 40.3 M7 AT SEEDhdt2:@.0001.0003. 4 263 204 471 43.3 M7 AT SEED hdt2:@.0001.0002. 3 262208 473 44.0 M7 AT SEED hdt2:@.0001.0004. 4 271 220 495 44.4 M7 67211-611.0 R2 AT SEED 67211-HDT2:0006.0005. 4 398 83 485 17.1 R3 AT SEED67211-HDT2:0006.0001. 3 438 60 501 12.0 R3 AT SEED 67211-HDT2:0006.0008.4 453 59 516 11.4 R3 AT SEED 67211-HDT2:0006.0002. 3 448 56 507 11.0 R3AT SEED 67211-HDT2:0006.0004. 2 417 52 471 11.0 R3 AT SEED67211-HDT2:0006.0007. 3 468 50 521 9.6 R3 AT SEED 67211-HDT2:0006.0006.4 464 45 513 8.8 R3 AT SEED 67211-HDT2:0006.0009. 5 456 42 503 8.3 R3 ATSEED 67211-HDT2:0006.0003. 4 456 30 490 6.1 R3 67211-12 12.4 R2 AT SEED67211-HDT2:0012.0002. 4 373 102 479 21.3 R3 AT SEED67211-HDT2:0012.0009. 3 399 98 500 19.6 R3 AT SEED 67211-HDT2:0012.0003.3 397 92 492 18.7 R3 AT SEED 67211-HDT2:0012.0001. 4 440 66 510 12.9 R3AT SEED 67211-HDT2:0012.0008. 2 469 65 536 12.1 R3 AT SEED67211-HDT2:0012.0006. 4 438 53 495 10.7 R3 AT SEED 67211-HDT2:0012.0004.5 465 54 524 10.3 R3 AT SEED 67211-HDT2:0012.0005. 5 460 52 517 10.1 R3AT SEED 67211-HDT2:0012.0007. 3 458 47 508 9.3 R3

EXAMPLE 9

The CTP-MT1 gene described in example 8 is cloned behind the napinpromoter into a binary vector with the ATPT2 gene from Arabidopsis andin another double construct with the prenyltransferase (PT) gene(SLR1736 ORF) from Synechocystis (described in PCT application WO0063391).

The MT1 gene is cut out of vector pMON67517 using the restrictionenzymes BspHI/PstI and cloned into the PstI/NcoI digested vectorbackbone of the napin shuttle vector pMON16600, resulting in theformation of pMON67210. The napin cassette from pMON67210, containingthe MT1 gene as a translational fusion with the encoded plastid targetpeptide CTP1 (WO 00/61771) is then cut from this vector with Not I andthe ends filled in with dNTPs using a Klenow procedure. The resultingfragment is inserted into vectors pMON16602 (digested with PmeI) andpCGN10822 (digested with SnaBI) to make pMON67213 and pMON67212,respectively (FIGS. 27 and 28). Vectors pMON 16602 and pCGN10822 aredescribed in PCT application WO 0063391.

These double constructs express the MT1 gene and the homogentisateprenyltransferase from either Arabidopsis or Synechocystis under thecontrol of the napin seed-specific promoter. The double gene constructsare used to transform Arabidopsis and transformed plants are grown tomaturity as detailed in Example 2. The resulting T₂ seed is analyzed fortotal tocopherol content and composition using analytical proceduresdescribed in Example 2. FIGS. 29-32 show total, γ-, δ-, and α-tocopherollevels for various transformed plant lines. Table 10 provides furtherdata from the above-described transformations.

TABLE 10 ng α ng γ ng δ ng total toco./mg toco./mg toco./mg toco./mgseed seed seed seed serial number Pedigree Construct 6.28 520.72 13.30540.30 69000157657 AT00002:@.0321. Control For 67212s 5.83 612.04 10.36628.24 69000157645 AT00002:@.0322. Control For 67212s 7.34 621.17 12.62641.14 69000157633 AT00002:@.0323. Control For 67212s 6.48 609.23 13.41629.12 69000157621 AT00002:@.0324. Control For 67212s 6.28 421.10 9.19436.56 69000157710 AT_G73:@. PMON67212 4.72 433.54 7.99 446.2469000157746 AT_G76:@. PMON67212 7.83 570.77 8.77 587.37 69000157758AT_G77:@. PMON67212 7.38 588.65 8.70 604.74 69000157784 AT_G80:@.PMON67212 9.56 580.79 14.93 605.28 69000157722 AT_G74:@. PMON67212 5.99605.44 10.38 621.82 69000157847 AT_G86:@. PMON67212 7.66 615.03 12.84635.53 69000157859 AT_G87:@. PMON67212 8.29 634.10 9.58 651.9769000157734 AT_G75:@. PMON67212 8.82 628.29 15.95 653.06 69000157809AT_G82:@. PMON67212 7.41 636.96 10.07 654.45 69000157823 AT_G84:@.PMON67212 6.64 648.21 10.25 665.10 69000157861 AT_G88:@. PMON67212 7.46624.59 34.85 666.91 69000157811 AT_G83:@. PMON67212 8.07 668.83 11.37688.27 69000157760 AT_G78:@. PMON67212 7.96 691.84 11.38 711.1869000157835 AT_G85:@. PMON67212 7.26 705.18 12.01 724.44 69000157796AT_G81:@. PMON67212 7.95 708.29 12.64 728.88 69000157772 AT_G79:@.PMON67212 6.95 508.05 11.25 526.25 69000157582 AT00002:@.0328. ControlFor 67213s 8.16 513.84 14.12 536.11 69000157619 AT00002:@.0325. ControlFor 67213s 8.94 547.41 16.60 572.95 69000157607 AT00002:@.0326. ControlFor 67213s 7.83 483.85 15.95 507.63 69000157974 AT_G99:@. PMON67213 8.50488.67 15.92 513.09 69000157671 AT_G101:@. PMON67213 7.18 503.50 13.74524.42 69000157873 AT_G89:@. PMON67213 6.31 511.87 15.83 534.0169000157950 AT_G97:@. PMON67213 7.30 515.26 11.47 534.02 69000157897AT_G91:@. PMON67213 7.11 512.25 19.56 538.92 69000157962 AT_G98:@.PMON67213 6.61 525.17 12.82 544.60 69000157900 AT_G92:@. PMON67213 7.50521.38 16.85 545.73 69000157683 AT_G102:@. PMON67213 7.87 529.25 11.29548.41 69000157948 AT_G96:@. PMON67213 6.88 523.01 18.83 548.7269000157912 AT_G93:@. PMON67213 7.56 534.21 13.03 554.80 69000157669AT_G100:@. PMON67213 6.79 536.89 12.17 555.86 69000157885 AT_G90:@.PMON67213 7.83 535.00 17.97 560.80 69000157936 AT_G95:@. PMON67213 8.57532.53 21.13 562.23 69000157708 AT_G104:@. PMON67213 8.15 550.66 18.42577.23 69000157695 AT_G103:@. PMON67213 9.91 560.45 26.66 597.0269000157924 AT_G94:@. PMON67213

1. A substantially purified nucleic acid molecule comprising a nucleic acid sequence that encodes a polypeptide with gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase activity and is selected from the group consisting of (a) a nucleic acid sequence comprising from 90% to 100% identity to SEQ ID NO:7; and (b) a nucleic acid sequence that encodes the polypeptide sequence of SEQ ID NO:34 or a homolog thereof with at least 95% identity to the polypeptide sequence of SEQ ID NO:34.
 2. The substantially purified nucleic acid molecule of claim 1, wherein said molecule comprises a nucleic acid sequence that encodes the polypeptide sequence of SEQ ID NO:34.
 3. The substantially purified nucleic acid molecule of claim 1, wherein said molecule is operably linked to a promoter region which functions in a plant cell.
 4. The nucleic acid molecule of claim 3, further comprising a 3′ non-translated sequence that functions in said plant cell to cause termination of transcription and polyA addition.
 5. A transformed plant comprising an exogenous nucleic acid molecule comprising the nucleic acid sequence of claim
 1. 6. The transformed plant according to claim 5, wherein said plant is selected from the group consisting of canola, corn, Brassica campestris, Brassica napus, oilseed rape, rapeseed, soybean, crambe, mustard, castor bean, peanut, sesame, cottonseed, linseed, safflower, oil palm, flax and sunflower.
 7. The transformed plant according to claim 6, wherein said plant is canola or oilseed rape.
 8. The transformed plant according to claim 6, wherein said plant is soybean or soybean line A3244.
 9. The transformed plant according to claim 5, wherein said nucleic acid molecule is operably linked to a promoter.
 10. The transformed plant according to claim 9, wherein said promoter is a seed specific promoter.
 11. The transformed plant according to claim 10, wherein said promoter is the p7S or Arcelin 5 promoter.
 12. The transformed plant according to claim 11, wherein said promoter comprises the nucleic acid molecule of SEQ ID NO:
 81. 13. The transformed plant according to claim 11, wherein said promoter comprises the nucleic acid molecule of SEQ ID NO:
 82. 14. A method of producing a plant having a seed with an increased α-tocopherol or increased α-tocotrienol level relative to a seed with the same genetic background comprising: (A) transforming said plant with a nucleic acid molecule, wherein said nucleic acid molecule comprises the nucleic acid molecule of claim 1; and (B) growing said transformed plant.
 15. The method according to claim 14, wherein said plant is selected from the group consisting of canola, rapeseed, corn, Brassica campestris, Brassica napus, oilseed rape, soybean, crambe, mustard, castor bean, peanut, sesame, cottonseed, linseed, safflower, oil palm, flax and sunflower.
 16. The method according to claim 15, wherein said plant is canola, soybean or oilseed rape.
 17. A seed from a transformed plant comprising the nucleic acid molecule of claim 1, wherein the seed comprises said nucleic acid molecule.
 18. The seed of claim 17, wherein the nucleic acid molecule encodes the polypeptide of SEQ ID NO:34.
 19. A host cell comprising the nucleic acid molecule of claim
 1. 20. The host cell according to claim 19, wherein said cell is a bacterial cell, plant cell.
 21. The host cell according to claim 19, wherein said cell is an Agrobacterium tumefaciens or E. coli cell.
 22. The nucleic acid molecule of claim 1 comprising SEQ ID NO:7.
 23. The nucleic acid molecule of claim 1, wherein said molecule is operably linked to a nucleic acid encoding a chloroplast transit peptide.
 24. The nucleic acid molecule of claim 1, wherein said molecule is operably linked to a nucleic acid encoding a heterologous chloroplast transit peptide. 